Elif Ayiter, aka. Alpha Auer, designer, educator and researcher at Sabanci University, Istanbul.

Keywords: play, Huizinga, avatars, visual, medium, creative

This text discusses how the Live Visuals of three dimensional online virtual worlds may be leading us into participatory and collaborative 'Play' states during which we appear to become the creators as well as the actors of what may also be described as our own real-time cinematic output. The paper will not be built upon a personal creative project but instead will be based upon a literature review from which an argument that brings together electronic creativity with Homo Ludens, culminating in alternative identities as play objects and avatars as their personification, has been obtained.

One of the most compelling stages where such plays are enacted may be the metaverse where avatars create and enact their own tales and conceptions, effectively bringing forth live, participatory cinema through 'Play.' Added should also be that the content of this text is not meant to apply solely to three dimensional virtual worlds or to avatars. I hope that what follows can also be held valid for other electronic output in which the subject matter is an examination of 'Play,' of the 'self,' of 'persona,' and the multiplicity thereof.