This semester, I intend to conduct my practicum, a collaborative video project dealing with the issue of what happens when a virtual community suddenly becomes a physical community, and then what changes that transgression of worlds effect within the virtual community when we return from the physical.  

Since 1996, I have run a network of webpages for writers and artists at resurrender.net.  From February 13-17, 2003, there will be a resurrender.net convention in New Orleans, resurrenderNOLA03, at which for the first time, members of the virtual community will meet face-to-face.  Members of the resurrender.net community come from all over the world, brought together by my desire to create a safe space online where people can openly explore the darker side of human nature in a supportive and non-judgmental environment.  

I feel this is an amazing opportunity to document the collision of virtual and physical worlds that has been an underlying theme of my Goddard study thus far.  I intend to distribute digital video cameras among participants at the convention and have them record fifteen to twenty minutes each on the question of community: What is the meaning of community?  Is a virtual community a “legitimate” community?  What are the implications of bringing a virtual community into a physical space?  What changes occur within the virtual community after it has returned from that physical space?  
My role in this project will be facilitator of discussion about community and editor of the raw footage.  This practicum is a stretch for me because I have never before acted in the role of facilitator when working with digital video; my projects have always been intensely personal, and I’ve always taken all my own footage and done all of my own editing.  Relying on other people’s footage and using the voices of others will be an interesting and truthfully, daunting departure from my usual practice.  

I have created a webpage at offensemechanism.com where I intend to document the process of gathering and editing together footage taken at resurrenderNOLA03 and offer suggestions and assistance to the participants as technical issues arise.

Evaluating the success of this practicum will be dependent upon analyzing the willingness of those who have so far only interacted in the virtual realm to interact and document that interaction in the physical world.  As facilitator of the project and editor of the final product, it is my duty to use my unique abilities in the medium to express the views of participants from around the world in an honest and creative manner that will hold meaning not only for the resurrender.net community, but in a broader sense, anyone interested in this documentation of the transgression of virtual and physical worlds.