Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in Chicago, Berlin and Regensburg...

If you cannot see this embedded video, click here.
OFFICIAL VIDEO INFO: The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is a pioneering New Music Ensemble in the popular virtual world, Second Life. This is a promo video from the AOM's recent concert tour in Berlin. The composition being performed for this promo is Fragula by Miulew Takahe. This video clip was recorded directly off of a screen in real life (RL) by Eifach Vacirca on behalf of the Kunstnet community. For the hi-rez movie links, go to the Kunstnet posting and to the direct download...

Here are members of the Orchestra getting ready to perform one the earliest classics from our repetoire for the SLCC in Chicago. This aforementioned composition is called WNK and was created by our German HUD builder, Bingo Onomatopoeia.

***UPDATE FROM THE NEAR FUTURE....
BINGO ONOMATOPOEIA HAS BEEN INTERVIEWED ON THE RADIO IN BERLIN ABOUT THE AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE... HE IS THE LAST SPEAKER ON THIS AUDIO EXCERPT... TO LISTEN TO HIS AUDIO INTERVIEW IN GERMAN FOR DEUTSCHLANDFUNK (A NATIONWIDE STATE-OWNED RADIO STATION), CLICK HERE...***

Hey there Contemporary Classicists, Bavarian Beermongers, and Gesamtkunstwerk Gamers,

This past weekend has been a frenzy of ear-frequency activity... The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse had officially launched their 2007 World Tour at the SLCC in Chicago and within a day had played the Kulturforum in Berlin's famous Potsdamer Platz!

Here is the official website for more information about our final event in Berlin...

Be sure to look carefully at both the official AOM and xxXtenxion blogs for info but in the meantime, check out more photos below and amuse yourself with my quasi-witty text commentary (in Italics, for tradition's sake)....

AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE's CONCERT FOR THE 3RD ANNUAL SECOND LIFE COMMUNITY CONVENTION IN CHICAGO:

Here is a close-up of some of the orchestra members (myself included) getting ready to dance to Bingo's in-world breakbeats...

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in Leerer Beutel - Regensburg...

Here is the Orchestra at Leerer Beutel in Regensburg. The photo on the wall is showing documentation of the RL component of this festival set up by Pomodoro Bolzano and Maxxo Klaar. Klaar also curated a panel called Dresscode Avatar and a headphone festival for all the off-world Bavarians to enjoy :-) Speaking of headphones, in the furthest right-hand corner, you can see two bohemian Bavarians enjoying the live tunage with the help of virtual headphones... Oh, you have probably also been somewhat intrigued with Nnoiz Papp's new avatar. Alot of my camera angles were calculated to display his exotic form...If you more closely at Nnoiz, you will see his custom designed snake-charmer "oboe" and this large fog-horn on his back that he premiered during his performance in my composition for the 2nd set for the Regensburg crowd called SLippery SLope....You will read more about that below...

Here is another angle showing even more gratuitous profiles of myself and my classical-colleagues-in-crime...

In this picture, I was able to document the 3 Wonders of the World which official are: I - The bling bling from my shades, II - Evo Szuyuan's "pink" bunny SLippers and III - The charming visage of Nnoiz.... Oh, I must also namedrop one of our charming videographers, Angrybeth Shortbread...In a sense, she remains the fourth wonder of the weird world called the Metaverse...

In this pic you can get a better sense of how claustrophobic the performance space actually was....I guess one should not complain since I think we were actually performing in a restaurant, after all ;-) Aside from the classically connisseured crowd, you are probably also dilligently studying the pop-up window in the upper-left region which happens to be the notecard score for Miulew Takahe's composition, Rue Blanche...All Orchestra performers have to read scores just as an Orchestra in RL would... I am sure the crowd of mostly Germans appreciated our level of professionalism and efficiency ;-)I must say though, that we usually need more headroom when performing this piece...Thank goodness my SLippery SLopes were not installed here....oh, for the context behind my "Slippery SLope" composition, you will need to scroll down past this next photo below (I am ever the shameless self-promoter, eh?)...

Here is a close-up of those phone-y Bavarians....heheheheheh! Placed efficiently on the wall is the schedule of events in Regensburg.... I am guessing though that you first impression of the scheduled events was that it was for some sort of Euro-Glitch-Rave taking place in the middle of a virtualized Black Forest, right? Hmmmm... I wonder if Poli Papp depicted in this photo is actually related to Nnoiz Papp? Hmmmmm.....Poli want an Oboe?

My composition SLippery SLope (2007) was re-performed in Virtual Haidplatz/Regensburg...


Here once again we have the Orchestra lining up for a group photo in commemoration of the (approximately) 1 month anniverssary of the previous performance of my first in-world composition, "SLippery SLope" (2007) at Virtual Haidplatz... Ok, to save you and me precious blogging time/space, just click on my previous blog postings to watch the video, observe the dress rehearsal, hang out with the SLopes, the first official rehearsal, the composition's world premiere in London and the history behind this composition.... Oh, and also check out the archive of recordings located here, here, here and here... As much as I like to re-hype my own compositions, I certainly loathe having to explain it every single time...sigh! The only major differences between this performance and previous performances of this composition are threefold: 1 - I actually finished the Slippery journey first... 2 - The AOM's dedicated architect DeThomas Dibou considered making my SLopes a little more Slippery than usual but decided instead to merely re-install them at a slightly different geographical orientation.... 3 - Nnoiz Papp played his brand new snake-charming oboe and added a middle-eastern flavour to the score...I hope someone recorded and/or video-documented this performance!

Here is proof that I was the very first avatar to complete the previous two SLopes before anyone else. Some of the more lag-luster Orchestral performers accused me of cheating but I actually did not land on the ground for any considerable length of time...For the most part, I landed on the same SLope that I ascended on and since I am the composer of this piece, I do not consider this to spatial "loophole" to be a form of "cheating" ;-)

This is further evidence (nay, proof) that the actual essence of my composition is experiential and non-competitive in nature....If my composition was a form of competitive sports, you would have seen me being mugged by the rest of the Orchestra by now ;-) But seriously for a minute, this piece was composed in good spirits and was intended to be more of a subjective and participatory experience than simply a "game"....

AOM's bonus performances from the 2nd set in Virtual Haidplatz for Regensburg...

Well, because I actually came in first instead of last like last time, we managed to complete this composition ahead of schedule so we decided to play a couple of our classics from our immortal repetoire... So, once again, we played Bingo Onomatopoeia's WNK as a sort of extended encore...

Since the audience's enthusiasm was on the borderline of being overwhelmingly positive and fanatical, we just HAD to perform Miulew Takahe's visually stunning composition, Fragula.... It became rather apparent to everyone present for this performance that we needed a much more substantial RL venue to absorb the ecstacy and mania embedded into the emotional content of our compositions and fortunately, we had one such venue booked in Berlin... In a matter of minutes, we blasted a splash presentation at the RL Postdamer Platz in Berlin!

AOM's 1st set at Potsdamer Platz (Kulturforum) in Berlin...

Here we are at the Odyssey Ampitheatre peforming our 1st set for a very large RL concert in Berlin's Kulturforum (aka. somewhere in the Potsdamer Platz downtown). I have not seen the photodocumentation from the RL side of the screen but I am sure (well, I hope and have faith) that the audience attendence was at least as big as the in-world one. You are probably focusing your gaze on the 3 pop-windows mentioned 3 dance moves...yes, one of the moves says "Bored Dance" but that does not mean that I was bored while playing Bingo's "WNK" composition...On the contrary, I merely started with this template dance to make the Flashdance...er... "fastdance" (designed by the owner of Odyssey, Sugar Seville) look that much more ecstatic and luniverian...ummmm...is "Luniverian" a word?

AOM's 2nd set at Potsdamer Platz (Kulturforum) in Berlin...

After a merciful 2 hour lunch-break (dinner break for those in Berlin's local time-zone), the Orchestra reconvened to perform the oldest of our Golden Oldies - Fadheit (2006) by Maximillian Nakamura. And yes, the pop-up window is Nakamura's elegant notecard score.... As for those square buttons, click here to read what they are. Since we craved a change of scenery, we decided to perform underwater (naturally) so we could host an evening on Top of the Pops called "Drowning Amongst The Classics". In other news, the guy with the punky green hair and fashionable minimalist white suit and tie ensemble is none other than my good friend and possible future collaborator, Nyko Nakamura (no known relation to Max)...

Here we are on the verge of completing our concert in its entirety. Again, you can get a sense of the population density partaking in our audio phantasy...

...did I mention that consumers of classical music can appear quite eccentric at times? Heheheheheheheh....

xxXtenxion Panel in Regensburg...

If you cannot see this very fun and glitchy machinima music video of the panel by Jori Tokyo, click here.

DRESSCODE AVATAR - TURNING OVER A SECOND LEIF...

Here is the panel of two moderated by Maxxo Klaar (perched on top of an official Wirxli poster) and co-facilitated by Miulew Takahe. This pic was taken at the exact point where Maxxo was beginning the lecture. If you click on this above pic to zoom in on it a bit, you will notice that Maxxo was wearing headphones since his collective, Pomodoro Bolzano had just organized and curated Regensburg's in-world headphones festival in Second Life. This headphone fest was part and parcel of an art event extravaganza called art.xxXtenxion. This official "Dresscode Avatar" panel discussion began with the other blue-skinned guy, Gumnosphistai Nurmi. Here is an important sidebit to note...the middle poster shows some AOM avatars posing with their RL biological selves...

***UPDATE FROM THE NEAR FUTURE***

HARS HEFFERMAN HAS BLOGGED ABOUT THIS PANEL.

Hey there avatar performance art and academic panel fans,

Just over 12 hours ago, I was on a quickie panel for a somewhat candid discussion about the relationship between my RL and SL self - I should assure you now that although it would be better to declare to the paparazzi otherwise, my relationship to my self(s) is strictly platonic :-)

I did not really elaborate all that much about my meta-banal RL life as a biological avatar named Jeremy Owen Turner. In fact, you can probably figure out exactly the kind of things I confessed by reading about my previous blog posting where I was interrogated by Dr. Alpenluft Laws. Those Swiss avatars really know how to cut through the archetypes and dig deep beneath the pixellated skin...sigh!

In terms of the academic side of my RL and SL life, I simply attend other panels like the Borders conference at Ars Virtua to sit and look pretty as they are usually fantastic places to scoop up new fans and if I really need to appear intelligent and "selves-conscious" (yes, in the plural sense), I can simply parrot the classic writings of Dr. Sherry Turkle.

People have it all wrong - it is the Age of Gemini and NOT Aquarius, OK?

Well..uhhh...ok..The Age of Gemini only applies to those Greek philosphers that cope with the world through dual-rimmed glasses...er....uh..... Geez, anyone have a Turkle book handy? I am not looking so bright and clever anymore! ;-)

Hmmmm...the last time I looked pretty smart was at my artist talk that was part of the Dorkbot series....Hmmmm... Well, nothing substantial to add for this posting today...it is 1:43 AM SLT (Second Life Time) at the moment so I should probably just publish this now and go to bed but before I do, here are some more pix to appeal to those who only tolerate me for the eye-candy I provide at a moment's notice...

Here is a shot of the audience including a couple of reporters (such as Carrie Sodwind and Aidan Aquacade). At this point, we were offering refreshments as Gumno/Leif had plenty of drinks to pass around and realized that the audience must have been getting quite thirsty after Gumno/Leif went into detail the parallels between his SL self and his RL self (Leif Inge).

Here is another angle showing the opposite side of the lecture space at art.think.box designed by DeThomas Dibou. It should be noted that although the SL space was designed for Berlin, the RL portion was projected directly into a venue in Regensburg.

After the panel, it was back to business and we returned to rehearsing the classics...

AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE's REHEARSAL FOR FRIDAY's and SATURDAY's WORLD TOUR DATES IN CHICAGO, BERLIN AND REGENSBURG:


Here we are rehearsing a true classic from our repetoire.... This screenshot is from AOM's very first composition called Fadheit (2007) by Maximillian Nakamura at the Odyssey Ampitheatre. I should add that the AOM is pleased to introduce Lizsolo Mathilde from Second Front as our newest orchestra player... We will be playing all the golden oldies at the Odyssey Ampitheatre and in Maximillian's underwater location for our performance in Kulturforum (Potsdamer Platz) in Berlin.

For this final pic of this posting, I wanted to show you our brief "Fragtest" (a "Fragtest" is when we play Miulew Takahe's Fragula composition to test out the venue's bandwidth) in Regensburg's virtual space at art.think.box in Leerer Beutel. For the record, Leerer Beutel is a gallery and cinema in both the RL and SL manifestations of the Bavarian mecca, Regensburg. I have just heard that the RL version of Leerer Beutel even has a restaurant...wow! You can read the schedule of events in Regensburg's Filmgalerie Cinema by clicking here.

Media and Planning Daze...

Here are some members of Second Front being interviewed by the Globe and Mail in Toronto for an upcoming video report. Unfortunately, some of us had to leave because the paparazzi only needed visuals of those SF members they had conducted an audio interview with a few weeks ago...sigh!

Hey there performance art, contemporary classical music and mass media fans,

These past couple of days probably seem somewhat banal to the casual blog reader or SL audience member but for me, these are exciting times. The moments themselves were not that exciting but the events that were being planned during these photo-documented sessions sure kept me wired all through the night...well, through the forced-midnight, anyways! ;-)

Both of the primary groups that I am involved with in Second Life had major media meetings and coordination activities....

The first such group is one devoted to performance art and is called SECOND FRONT. Here are a few more photos from our interview session with Skza Pinion and Grayt Arai from the Globe and Mail in Toronto...

Here is another camera angle from my avatar's point of view...I am guessing (based on Grayt's massive cam-traption) that the Globe and Mail crew had many camera angles to choose from... For the record, we spent most of our time posing and looking good....It is a good thing that we are already used to being media-accessible SLebrities :-)


When this pic was taken, Man Michinaga had just arrived to join us for the interview...

Here is a direct screenshot of the website where an earlier video feature by Skza Pinion documented Second Front at Inter-Access Gallery in Toronto. for some reason, I was unable to capture a still from the actual online video but it should still be archived online and available by clicking on this link here.

The second ensemble that I am involved with is one involved in the "new music" or "contemporary classical" scene of Second Life. They are called the AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE... Here is the only pic I took of our meeting that took place slightly less than 12 hours ago....

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse has collectively decided to choose an underwater venue for our performance in Berlin on August 25th at the Berliner Langen Nacht der Museen am Kulturforum Potsdamer Platz. This Berlin show will launch our official European (and possibly World) Tour which also includes concert dates in Regensburg, Oslo and Vienna.


Ok, now it is time for me to get ready for bedtime in RL..I simply cannot stay awake forever, can I? ;-)

Wirxli was NOT here...

Here is photographic evidence (well, proof) that I was NOT here at Juria Yoshikawa's early-period installation that had an opening sometime in the distant past...

Hey installation-art fans and Juria Yoshikawa retrospective completists,

Here is another mini blogette posting for you with a brief confirmation that I was definitely NOT here with Juria Yoshikawa and Fau Ferdinand late last night.

We were definitely NOT hanging out and discussing future collaborations nor was I, for the record, anywhere NEAR here for Juria's opening that happened sometime early in her career (actually the latter part is true...sigh!).

...and here is further proof that Juria herself was definitely NOT here with me and for sure, my good friend Fau Ferdinand was NOT here either. There were others who were NOT here last night and even if they were "here", I since have forgotten who they were because they were obviously NOT anyone in particular.

Ok? I just wanted to set the record straight....phew!

If you want to know more about Juria, click on these links below:

Click here for one of my earlier blog postings about Juria's exhibition called "4".

Click here, here for Evo Szuyuan's machinima documentation of Juria's post-ambient installations and performances...

Zombie Time: A Second Life To Live!

Here I am in full unadulterated zombie-glam mode with my colleagues, Second Front. Yes, it is true, I was feeling even more undead than usual that day...sigh!

Hey there performance art zamboni zombies and Second Front glamazoids,

This is just a quick blog post to point you in the general direction of the blog I have just posted on behalf of Second Front.

Normally, I would write a longer blog posting but quite honestly, even the undead needs to sleep sooner or later...sigh!

So, if you want to read the genuine Tales From The Crypt, click here...

If you want to read about my personal semi-autobiography, I encourage you to scroll down and peruse this blog... Enjoy!

Feeling the Fame at InterAccess in Toronto...

Here I am at InterAccess Gallery's workshop series in Toronto under the influence of a very elegantly wasted haze while trying to walk the crooked-mile to my pixellated podium lecturn-device thingie with my well-dressed bodyguard at my side...

Hey performance artists, workshopaholics and elegantly wasted academics,

Whoa! That was some workshop presentation that I was scheduled to do a couple of weeks ago! I am only now starting to remember what happened to me (and by extension, the audience) that day and from what I do recall, it sure wasn't pretty (although everything in SL looks pretty).

Everything is slowly being processed by my pixellated pineal gland now:

1) I was so drugged up from Tran Spire's freebies during his self-help seminar, I could barely get out of my chair!

2) There was at least one assassination attempt on my life and it was more than my lone guard could handle...sigh! It turned out that this was much more of an inside job than any insurgent could handle - the only gunshots fired that could be proven as legit by my boduguard were coming from the BFG barrels of my friends and colleagues Man Michinaga and Fau Ferdinand...sigh!

3) My automated-lecturn called the "Teacher's Pet" was not spitting out the videos, text and pix I needed for my lazy presentation in time and therefore, I was in such a purple-haze, I could not even see the projection screen....

If you want to read about the workshop in general, please read the official story on the Second Front blog here...