Paper Title
THE VISION IS THE CULTURE

Abstract
Abstract - Subjectivity and identity are well-researched topics in the fields of communication, critical theory, sociology, media studies and cultural studies. However, explorations of how subjectivity and gender identity are played out in online virtual reality worlds are much rarer. This paper will investigate what is meant by the vision is the culture by way of conducting research into Second Life, one of the most popular virtual communities. It can be argued that because Second Life promotes itself and functions as a fantasy space, the cultural politics of subjectivity and identity are likely to be accentuated and brought into stronger relief: in other words, forms of cultural politics that are discursively foreclosed or partially concealed in the actual world are likely to be allowed out into the open. If cultural politics in the actual world is, to some extent, a question of the relation between power relations, socio-cultural fantasies and the various mechanisms of concealment that render these into regimes of symbolic power (that privilege masculinity over femaleness, or normalize and naturalize narratives of racial superiority and inferiority), then the great advantage of Second Life is that it is likely to pay relatively little regard to the more discrete methods of symbolic power. The question of who has the authority and power to provide definitions of the human subject is central to the study of cultural politics in areas such as gender and race. Keywords - Subjectivity, Identity, Virtual Reality, Second Life, Culture