[-empyre-] Re: Gazira Babeli's exhibition

[Kathy Cleland <kathy.cleland@arts.usyd.edu.au>]

I forgot to post the location of Gazira Babeli's exhibition that I 
talked about in my previous post (see below). It's still on if you 
haven't already visited I recommend it

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/71/24

cheers

kathy

Kathy Cleland wrote:
> Hi everyone, and thanks for the introduction Melinda :),
>
> Although I have been investigating virtual worlds since the late 
> 1990s, I'm still a bit of a Second Life newbie.
> I logged onto SL for the first time in mid-2006, but various 
> frustrations (including an old computer) made the experience quite 
> difficult to negotiate and I still find the whole Second Life 
> phenomenon both intriguing and frustrating - often both at the same 
> time! However, I actually find the newbie experience a particularly 
> interesting one and will post more about that later.
>
> First though, it's been great reading Patrick's postings about using 
> Second Life as a performative space and, in my own limited experience 
> of Second Life, the most interesting stuff I have come across is 
> definitely the performative. As Patrick has already mentioned, Eva and 
> Franco Mattes' re-enactments of famous performance art pieces of the 
> 1960s and 1970s, as well as the work of Second Front and artists like 
> Gazira Babeli make the most of the real-time graphics capabilities of 
> virtual worlds and their ability to involve the audience as active 
> participants rather than just passive viewers and audiences. I've also 
> been quite enchanted by Adam Nash's interactive artworks/musical 
> instruments but as he will be joining the discussion himself in a few 
> days perhaps it's best to leave that discussion until then ...
>
> Visiting Gazira Babeli’s retrospective exhibition 'Collateral Damage' 
> in the Exhibit A gallery on Odyssey Island is a Second Life experience 
> that shouldn't be missed. It's a bit like entering an Alice in 
> Wonderland world, simultaneously magical and uncanny. Describing 
> herself as a 'code performer' Babeli makes use of the elastic virtual 
> physics of the digital terrain to create interactive art works where 
> audience interaction sets off a series of playful, unpredictable and 
> sometimes disturbing animations. Her Andy Warhol inspired work 'Second 
> Soup' traps your avatar in a looped animation within the soup can 
> (‘You love pop art but pop art hates you!’ the work tells you). 
> Another work, 'Come Together' enables audience avatars to morph and 
> merge into a collective living sculpture. Or you can even take on 
> Gazira's identity - buying her self-portrait (for the very modest sum 
> of 1 Linden $) enables you to wear her avatar. Everything is 
> interactive and you have to be careful what you touch, and what you 
> agree to sit on! Taking up Gazira's invitation to sit in a chair in 
> the exhibition, my avatar was possessed by one of her voodoo-like 
> ‘performance codes’ and began to spontaneously make strange arm and 
> hand gestures. Sitting on a chair in one of the paintings on the wall 
> triggered an even more disturbing transformation as my avatar body was 
> grotesquely distorted and deformed, body parts stretching and swapping 
> place even after I freed myself from the chair and tried to escape! 
> There's a fine line between performance art and griefing in Second Life!!
>
>
> Kathy Cleland


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