A completely different experience was art_room, where I used a
webchat called webcamnow. My performance was developed in the
context of Identidades Virtuais workshop, and I had set a schedule
during the month of June. When I began the performance, on the
first day, I went to room 1 to announce what I was doing by simply
posting the sentence: "Don't be afraid to ask everything you always
wanted to know about contemporary art". I moved to a free room
(from 30 rooms, only three rooms had people in them), and I began
to have conversations with some of the people. I soon realize that
some of the users felt like they "own" the website (no matter what
room I moved into), and they began to become very aggressive
towards me. If you see the still image of me during the
performance, you will only see my eyes. I was hiding behind my
powerbook, because some of the users kept saying that I was showing
off too much (even if I was decently dressed). In order to avoid
some visual disturbance, I ended up "veiled" by my computer...
The result was totally the reverse from the other experiences...The
experience of a certain degree of intimacy, soon lead to fear acted
as aggressivity and exclusion. In the second day I was expelled
from the "family and friends" area: my camera was shut down, and I
was disconnected as a user by the moderator (just because he felt
like it...he confessed it, when I later protested signed as a new
user).
At first I was really furious and sent a complaint letter (that was
never answered), but soon I realize that this experiment was very
fascinating and revealing of how a human community can function -
in a social and political sense - no matter what kind of media you
are using or what kind of space you are at.
related: http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/001121.html