This book investigates the way that multiple layers and authors of representation are present in the act of modern skinning. These acts are not simple choices by game users or even the game authors directly. Rather, skinning emerges from the chaos of coding and motion capture, a necessity rather than a carefully considered performance. Without an examination of who is creating these images and why, we get only the view of the final user, leading to unintended performances that reify or impose gendered and racialized performances. Through interrogation of virtual platforms in video games, virtual reality, and performance, this book provides a framework for understanding the choices we are asked to make when taking on a virtual skin within a virtual space.

Alicia Corts has been teaching theatre and film for twenty years. An accomplished director and media designer, she has worked both nationally and internationally. An active researcher, Dr. Corts is primarily interested in performance in virtual spaces, specifically how identity and gender issues are regulated by online performance spaces. She is also one of the primary investigators on the Kutiyattam Project, an effort to bring the experience of this ancient Indian performance form into virtual reality. She has been published in Theatre Journal, Ecumenica, notches, and Rebus as well as authoring a number of book chapters.