My Dorkbot SL Artist Talk with Ian Ah...

Official media release in The Ava-Star Issue #9.

RELATED NEWS LINKS:

Maximillian Nakamura's Self-Report on Dorkbot's 1st meeting in Second Life

Plurabelle Posthorn from Oslo reporting for the Virtual Artists' Alliance

Bryan Dix from Toronto reporting for the Second Life Newspaper

Sascha Pohflepp from Berlin reporting for "We Make Money Not Art"

Additional event pictures by Sascha Pohflepp can be found here.

Hey performance art fans!

I just had my very first official artist talk in Second Life yesterday.
I shared the talk with Ian Ah...

This was Dorkbot SL's very first in-world meeting in Second Life and was organized by Maximillian Nakamura. Ian and I were able to completely pack the venue(s) with plenty more avatar performance art fans lining up to get in...

For my brief 20 minute talk, I discussed my earlier avatar performance projects prior to Second Life and then talked about the formation of Second Front.

Check out the photos below...


To begin the event, we assembled at Max's Rhizomatic headquarters which acts as the home base for all Dorkbot events in Second Life. It was here where Max gave his slideshow and introduction to the first official Dorkbot meeting...


After about 15 minutes, we eventually brought the audience over to Ian Ah's Sky Lounge on Odyssey Island for the official artist talks. Ian Ah's Sky Lounge is inspired by the Ava-Bar created exclusively for The Avastar sim by Aimee Weber.


Here is a general view of the event just minutes before my talk was about to begin. You can see Ian Ah on the left conversing with Alan Dojoji about the possible questions and comments Alan was going to bring up at the end of my lecture...

Here is a photographed moment from the beginning of my lecture where I am showing the audience some early archival video footage of The Gates (Gateskeeper and Gatescrasher) from 2002.


This pic was also taken during my lecture. On the screen, is a video clip from Second Front's Danger Room rehearsal.

Ok ok, so I took alot of crowd-shots that look nearly identical to one another ;-)


I guess I must have began my lecture at right at the cusp of dusk because it was just a few minutes into my talk before night descended upon Odyssey Island.

Here is a side angle...

...and another side angle...

...and still another side angle (obsessive, I know)...

During Ian's lecture, he decided to open up his thoughts about the functionality of art media and academic transmission venues to the general audience for interactive consideration. And sure enough, there was a fair bit of commentary from the audience. Here is a thought-provoking statement by one of the first Second Life performance artists, Dancoyote Antonelli.

After the event had formally finished, we retired for a brief after-party at Ian's additional viewing lounge....

Special thanks to Sugar Seville and Pacino Hercules for their kind philanthropy in allowing events like this to happen :-)

RELATED LECTURE LINKS:

Personal blogs:

Irwin Ziiz ZW (alien avatar performance artist in the Moove/Roomancer community)

Roland Quagmire III (avatar curatorial project in the Moove/Roomancer community)

Voice of Fire (performance artist in Digitalspace Traveler)

Onto Distro's Journal (performance artist in Digitalspace Traveler)

Other personal projects:

AVATARA - First in-world documentary of an avatar community.

The Gates - The First Avatar Band and Performance Group in Digitalspace Traveler.
Additional Gates links: Scratchbook (Frankfurt), Techworlds (Seattle) and Raketa (Chiang Mai).

THM (The Hotmails) - First VoIPunk band. THM was formed with Alberto Guedea in 2005.

Historical links from the lecture:

Second Front - Pioneering Avatar Performance Art Group in Second Life.

Western Front - Vancouver New Media collective that inspired Second Front.

Intermedia - Vancouver New Media collective that became the Western Front. An example of a member of Intermedia is Gregg Simpson.

N.E. Thing Company - Early Vancouver New Media group brought up by Alan Dojoji during question period.

Outerspace - Open Space's history of prehistoric Telematic Art.