How We Roll

Photography and Digital Composite Series, 2011

Project Overview

How We Roll is a photo-based series exploring the intersection of digital and physical identity. In this project, I composited portraits of myself and my husband into World of Warcraft screenshots, visually merging our real-life selves with our in-game avatars—Neavu and Drocer. This was one of several projects that expanded my interest in how we craft and inhabit identities through play and design, both online and off.

Concept & Process

Creating characters in games like World of Warcraft in many ways mirrors my art-making process. I intuitively adjust every detail until it feels right—especially the name. A character’s name is essential to their identity; it anchors who they are. It took me over four hours to come up with “Neavu,” my main character, because the sound of her name had to feel right before I could fully embody her. That kind of attention makes the character feel like a true extension of self.

I photographed Karl and myself and composited our portraits into in-game environments using Photoshop, aiming to visually bridge our two worlds and collapse the boundary between fantasy and reality.

I love creating characters and exploring different personas, and I feel different when I play different characters. In World of Warcraft I almost exclusively play an undead warlock named Neavu. When I roll a new character the design process is really similar to a lot of my art making. I intuitively tweak everything until the character feels just right, and then I spend a ridiculous amount of time brainstorming names. It took me four hours to come up with the name Neavu which I pronounce knee-A-voo. I think it’s worth taking the time to work out all the character details since most gamers are going to spend a ton of time with their characters playing as their character. ~Carol/Neavu

 

 

 

Playing video games is how I deal with stress. Logging into a different world gives me an escape from real life drama, stress, and other concerns. It helps calm my nerves and makes me feel more level-headed when I log out and return to real life task. But the best thing about playing games, specifically multi-player online games (MMOs), are the real-time adventures and time spent with friends in completely different worlds. ~Carol/Neavu

Karl and Anika in Orgrimmar. Digital composite, 2011.

 

How I Roll. Carol and Neavu (undead warlock), 2011.

 

This project was completed in Fall 2011 as part of an advanced undergraduate independent study in photography at Jacksonville State University with Professor Doug Clark.