[-empyre-] bulles

[anniea <a@bram.org>]

A few weeks ago I did a performance in Paris with Nicolas Frespech.

This performance echoes in my mind all the time while I read the mails
concerning this month subject "Constructions of identity"
So I think it might be interesting for you know about it.

The performance was called "L'un la poupée de L'autre" what I
translated to "Being the doll of one another." You can find an English
announcement on http://bram.org/confront/sphere/indexeng.html

Nicolas and I have put our igloo camping tents on the stage. For half
an hour we both were inside our spherical tents with our computer
connected via a cable to the Internet. We were playing a game in which
we were the others living doll. We both had a webcam and we interacted
using these cams.
The public could follow our hidden face to face via an interface that
projected the images of the two artists side by side on the wall
behind the tents.
As in a virtual world (a video game, Second Life) we gave orders to
our avatar played by the other. But contrary to what happens in the
virtual world, here the alter ego was well alive. We could agree or
not to give flesh to projections of the other.
We wanted to comment on the present situation where people tend more
and more to live in their own bubble, their own sphere, without need
for the other, by forming a couple with their virtual doubles.

You can find a 10 min video extract of this performance on
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2294029240432878753&hl=en
Better images will follow soon on the website.

Our performance was a very emotional and intimate experience. For me
it's still to fresh to talk about all it's implications.
Public and intimate space was mixed on several levels. (in the tent-on
the internet-in the performance space) The performance wasn't about
identity but about authenticity.
Tent, abris, protection, dark space, uterus? Internet cable, cord
umbilical by which arrives what we feed on and by which leaves our
waste?

I hope you will find my mail appropriate

yours
Annie Abrahams

ps I also organised this year 8 net performances in the salon of the
site of panoplie.org
http://panoplie.emakimono.org/index.php/projets/voir/11
These performances of about 5 minutes were the starting point of a web
rendezvous of about 20 minutes .
The archives of these meetings are limited to only one image and the
text of the chat. We say voluntarily "no" to the all podcast trend, to
give more freedom to the performing artists, and to put the chatters
"under surveillance".