The Girlfriend Experience- unique idea or badly formed concept?

I have just looked into The Girlfriend Experiment,and realised that it was in fact something Emma DID discuss with us last year, although the name did not ring any bells when I heard it. The project is basically a game that uses real people as avatars, and you can log on a control them, although you need to gain their trust first. The project raised a couple of points for me.

To start with, I have thoughts about the way they look. The avatars are presented in their undergarments, all very basic and with arms limply at their sides, as expressionless as possible. It is a classic look of an avatar that is being customized, and has not yet been instructed how to look. This to me raised the question: 'Why?' Surely the point of computer avatars modelled on the human form is, for alot of people, to appear as human as possible. So why, then, are these actually human avatars playing down their humanity? Obviously it is to make them appear as characters in a game, but surely letting them stand more naturally, with more human expressions, would be more in keeping with the point that the avatars they are trying to look like are trying to appear as - humans. OR, maybe this is a parody of the fact, maybe the game is making a parody of computer avatars trying to be human, by making humans try to be avatars? Would not then, it be more in keeping of this idea to get the humans do to as instructed without having their trust gained first as avatars do. Avatars have no free will. Being 'tools', they are a conduit of the free will of the game creator and the free will of the game player. The avatar has no existing 'will' to speak of, becuase it does not exist beyond it's visual representation. So why then do the human avatars here get a degree of free will? It is because they are not, and cannot ever be, just tools. They will always be humans, they can act as avatars, but will never be that simplistic in nature. In the 'game' they will not do any wrongdoing, they will tell the player to leave, and the idea of gaining their trust suggests to me that this might be an experiment, the purpose of which being to get the player to start relating to computer avatars in a new way, and to bring a human set of ethics to games. We would not ask this human avatar to kill, so why should we a computer one? Because the computer universe is not real...because computer universes allow us to dispense of our agression in a way that does not harm our reality....are two reasons I hear you say, but who is to judge what reality is? Surely ANY unhappy act can be seen as a harmfull blow to our universe, cyber or otherwise...bad thoughts breed bad actions. I am digressing from the point here slightly, so to backtrack, the girlfriend experience uses human avatars and presents them as close to the same as a computer avatar is presented, perhaps for many reasons that can be pondered and argued against. Another point raised for me, beyond the presentation, is the purpose. I have touched on the idea that it could be an experiment challenging the the relationships humans form with computer avavtars, but what if it is instead challenging human to human relationships (human interaction). This could be why the element of trust and the building up of a relationship is such an important factor in it's gameplay.

Unfortunately this game only works wed-fridays, so I have not played, so perhaps experiencing it will make its purpose more evident than just reading about it and looking at images from it. Either way, I can see why it was suggested to me to look at, it is similar to Knightmare in the way that it works, i.e, having a human avatar with whom trust is an important factor. It differs however becuase there are no puzzles to solve or end goal to work towards. I really like the idea of using a human character in a computer game now, but perhaps one with narrative and obstacles, and will be looking into performance art if I decide to take this idea further.

To end, if anyone has played this game or has any differing perpsectives of it, please feel free to post a comment for me to consider/argue against/agree with/debate.