Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Abstract User-created content and social networking have proved to be the most fundamental elements that shape how and why people use the Internet today. One concept that stems from and combines these two motives is 'metaverse', 3-D user-created virtual worlds. During the last few years, we have witnessed the rise of several metaverse attempts, and a growing art community within them, due to the possibilities they offer for building creative content. This paper develops from the historical evolution of metaverse, and the dynamic and transformative relationship between art and information and communication technologies (ICT), which has so far transformed the spectator into participator, user, and even creator of both the artwork and content in the web. It discusses and further proposes a form of 'meta-art', the native art form of a future metaverse, which inherits this transformative interplay between art and ICT and already existing art expressions in the current metaversal worlds. Keywords: metaverseuser-created contentvirtual worldsartcollaborationopennessinterconnectednesstemporality Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to Âli Yurtsever from Yildiz Technical University, Faculty of Art and Design, for his valuable support and critiques during the writing of this paper. Notes The Hindu rooted word 'avatar' originally means the descent of the gods through incarnation into lower realms of existence. This word was also first used by Stephenson to define the representations real life players in metaverse. The number of total residents in Second Life is more than 16 million according to the 15 December 2008 statistics. As for the active residents, there were approximately 700, 000 who had logged in during the previous weeks. There are some distinctions between the original metaverse idea and how the concept is later idealised by many. Stephenson had created a world with economy that is closed in itself without connection to the real world economy. The idealised metaverse, on the other hand, is connected to the real world economy. Also the original metaverse is privately owned and content creation is subject to strict persmissions, whereas the metaverse is dreamed to be an open world today. Licklider, who was a leading MIT psychologist and computer scientist in ARPA in 1960s, had already proposed it. See Packer and Jordan Citation (2002). Created in 1990 by Pavel Curtis of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, LambdaMOO is still an active world that has served as a focal point for virtual environment research. One of the most significant events in its history is that it hosted the first virtual rape. (See http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/ARapeᵢnCyberspace for more information. ) The term 'alive' implies here the persistency of online games where game and interaction continues regardless of how many players are logged in. A mod is a software modification to alter a computer game's appearance or play (see Wikipedia). For instance, Counter-Strike is a mod for the first person shooter game Half-Life. 'Your world, your imagination' has been the motto of Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life. http: //npirl. blogspot. com/ Accessed 12 February 2009. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Eson/30/235/63 Accessed October 2007. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Nomasha%20Syaka/131/131/22, http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Kress/168/88/391 Accessed12 February 2009. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Sudo/28/29/41 Accessed 12 February 2009. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/The%20Port/16/72/26 Accessed 12 February 2009. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Capel/39/24/69 Accessed 12 February 2009. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Cayuga/88/240/75 Accessed 1 October 2008. http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Burning%20Life%20 (Deep%20Hole) /2/6/24 Accessed 1 October 2008. Andy Warhol's short film series include The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women (1964) and The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys (1964). The exhibiton appeared in he Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University and Postmasters Gallery in Manhattan, New York. See http: //slurl. com/secondlife/Dowden/11/16/52 Accessed December 2006.
Tasa et al. (Tue,) studied this question.