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We
can announce part of an event (be interviewed about
storm damage for the TV news), we can engage in commerce
(buy something on eBay), engage in play (be a team member
for a networked game with partners in Tokyo, Chicago
and Taipei), engage in discussion (post to a discussion
list about teachers to avoid at a certain university),
and thereby contribute to the expansion of the arcade
since in this modern arcade, everything that we do is
recorded and is then plastered on the walls (archived)
to become part of the space, part of the overall experience.
Engaging in the electronic arcade, even in a minimal
fashion, allows us to haunt the arcade with ghost-like
impressions of ourselves long after we are gone.
In this virtual arcade, in this
ephemeral global village, the seductive persona
of Monroe, the rampaging shadow of Godzilla, and
the combative presence of the John Wayne cowboy float
through the electronic ether as ghosts that we can observe,
talk with, and update or recombine. In many ways, these
ghostly personas interact with us with a certain degree
of parity, the fact that they are actually dead, or
never truly existed in the first place has no relevance
in the virtual world (Heim).
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