Solo Performance at Burning Life!

Wirxli Flimflam's performance "Clearance-Cut: Self-Exorcism to relieve the collective guilt of The Purple (Wo)Man [especially those who are blue in the face]".
September 28th, 2007 for the Burning Life Festival on Odyssey Island.
Videography by Evo Szuyuan.
If you cannot see this embedded video, please click here for the direct YouTube link.

Hey there performance art censors, burning lifers and Lindenpolooza SLam Dancers!

Before I begin my blurb, I would like to give special thanks to Evo Szuyuan for offering to produce this edited machinima document for me at the last minute....zillions of thanks, Evo! :-)

Phew! I am still reeling from my recent solo performance at the Linden sponsored Burning Life festival on Odyssey Island.

I must say that I am really exhausted from venting out almost all of my ancestral guilt at those poor tourist-ready totem poles... Well, I was actually venting more blood and anger towards myself since it was about guilt after all. I mean, as any ol' Europeanized SLemale will know full well... the best way to abuse others is also to abuse yourself twice as much and geez, did I get a full chainsaw lasceration! YUCK!

For the record, I just want to clarify that I am NOT Anti-Aboriginal or anything like that...quite the contrary actually. If one pays close attention to the title, I think my position on the subject will be clear...

I am referencing the violence of cultural clearcuts and if you look closely, I am actually punishing myself over my ancestral guilt (yes, the colonial excesses of the Purple [Wo]Man) and honoring my ancestors in the purist of ways - going on a complete hyperliberal murder-suicide rage with a chainsaw...ok? I only pushed over some of the smaller totem poles to show how touristy and artificial they were. Ok, now that is off my chest (the guilt and the chainsaw wounds are still on my chest though), I hope you will feel the visceral and emotional force of my performance.

That day also happened to be the official Burma Protest day in SL so I wore the red-shirt designed (I think) by my orchestral colleague, Junivers Stockholm. Yes, I know that I am mixing up political messages here but it was simply coincidence that I was dealing with two very polemical issues at once..honestly. I guess you could summarize by saying that my position on the whole matter is no so clear-cut...heheheheh.

Ok, now that you have watched the above video, here is a chance for me to give you a sneak preview of the performance's history...

Here is the only pic I took of this performance and it was not even taken on performance day. If anyone who attended my performance has any additional photos, please send them to me and I will blog it. This action shot is actually the sole documentation from my rehearsal the day before which actually barely happened due to poor me hustling and scrambling to find extra totem poles and a self-mutilating chainsaw at the last minute.... You can read all about it below...

***BREAKING NEWS FROM THE NEAR FUTURE - NEW PHOTO PROVIDED BY MIULEW TAKAHE...

AND NOW...

...THE MAKING OF CLEARANCE CUT...

Well, this performance piece has been in the works for quite a few months now.
I do not have any photodocumentation of my most recent totem pole shopping fiasco but I will tell you about it quickly before I show you the rest of my photos from a much earlier time in ancient pre-history (relatively speaking)...

Basically, I forgot to buy the rest of the totem poles that I needed to perform and then I had to scramble some more at the last minute as well as a working (well, actually a stihl-ish "glitchy") chainsaw...sigh!.

Originally, I was going to perform at my Second Front colleague Great Escape's Stone Pike location but at the time, I felt that I need more poles than the one species I bought from Gwynnyth Charming. So, I only bought one pole then and I should have stocked up on more of them to prepare much earlier for the growth of my totem pole forest. Turns out, Gwynnth's store was "closed" due to some Linden-side server teleportation issues a couple of days ago so that freaked me right out of my tree when I realized I wanted to buy 9 more poles of her design!

Anyways, Gwynnyth contacted me directly and helped me buy the rest. Meanwhile, I scouted for smaller totem poles that were obviously more two-dimensional and therefore, perfect for acting as the feeble interior-decoration facades they were intended to be.

While shopping for additional poles, Bibbe Oh and Cleo Hultcrantz from the Third Rail Gallery of Current Art came to my rescue and donated enough L$ to purchase all the poles I needed...phew!

All this was happening while trying to find a functional self-mutilating chainsaw. With the help of Sugar Seville, Gazira Babeli and my romantic partner, Tea Chenille, we were able to secure a suitable one.
Warm thanks to all of you as well! :-)

Anyways, here are some photos of my first totem pole shopping excursion on Notata Falls - the same place where iHeart Kuri plans to perform...

For some reason, I did not see this lovely tall totem pole for sale. By perching on its wings, you get a great aerial view of Notata Falls but I guess it would have been too tall for Evo (my videographer) to crop in all the performance angles...

Ok, maybe it was not so tall in retrospect but by zooming out, the Falls and the surrounding encampment looked rather sublime! I know, I know! I am a Romantic at heart! Sigh!

Now THIS was the totem pole I really wanted but all I saw was the smaller version for sale...sigh! I must admit that I also had a brief shopping spree at the local gift shop but I will not disclose what I plundered...er... "re-re-patriated" ;-)

If I remember correctly, I swore I saw some cyberpowwow dancers dancing on that field below. I wonder where they disappeared to?

planning for LIVE...

Here I am coordinating the LIVE performance schedule for October 19th with Bea Box and Fau Ferdinand on Fau's personal property on...uh...what is the name of her island again? Celedon? I will have to ask her..sigh!

Hey there LIVE Performance Art Biennial ticket-holders,


"Yesterday" (well, a few hours ago in my time zone) has been a productive day in SL for me.
Not only did I have my weekly Avatar Orchestra Metaverse rehearsal earlier in the day (RL was too distracting for me to take photos of this event but I am sure I will link to some) but I also managed to schedule the remainder of the LIVE performances for October 19th and 20th...yaay!

Oh, I should clarify here...the orchestra rehearsal was not merely a rehearsal...we also recorded our HUD demo for Evo Szuyuan's upcoming presentation at V2 in Holland. Evo will be using the same footage as part of her future documentary about the AOM...yaaaay! I cannot wait to watch the final product!!!

The excitement did not end with the Orchestra's rehearsal and the LIVE meeting though... Once I left Second Life for the day, I also managed to maintain some off-world communication with the Orchestra about my upcoming Riesenrad composition for Wien Modern in Vienna.

Now, before I show you my second and final photo of this posting, I have some breaking news for you.... PAULINE OLIVEROS HAS COMPOSED A RE-ADAPTATION OF ONE OF HER CLASSIC COMPOSITIONS FOR THE AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE! DETAILS TO FOLLOW!

Ok, now that I have gotten that breaking news off of my chest, here is my other photo...

At this point, Second Front member Tran Spire joined us as well as Bibbe Oh, iixlii (my drug dealing butler), and Spinster Voom (sporting a new look)...

Ok, I should go to bed now as I have to meet up with some of the LIVE participants tomorrow to test out their gear. Good night for now :-)

Pauline Oliveros in Second Life!

This is probably the first ever photo-document of Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes) in Second Life unless of course, Miulew Takahe took a quickie snapshot first...sigh! For this pic, I literally just gave Pauline my Rue Blanche gear (including the backpack) so Miulew could guide Pauline through the process of testing out the orchestra's inflatable backpack. For the record, Miulew got a compliment from Pauline about his zany SLippers! She must have been envious of these SLippers because she was definitely acting like a classic shoegazer with all the times she was bending down to check out her own plain-jane pair ;-)

Hey there 20th century and contemporary classical new music legends and musicworking mythmakers!

I know I promised in my last blog posting that I was taking a mini blog-break for the rest of September in order to focus on composing my new orchestral piece called Riesenrad but I could not help myself because due to recent developments, there was just a little bit more to blog...

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of giving the electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes in SL) a tour of the hip art scene on Odyssey Island and also with the help of Miulew Takahe, a demonstration of the performance gear we use in our Avatar Orchestra Metaverse group. It is our hope that Pauline/Free takes up our offer to join the Orchestra and maybe even compose a new piece for the ensemble!

Well, no promises yet since Pauline had some server problems and was unable to hear the HUD-generated sounds properly. I am guessing this is because Second Life's active-user population has actually (not just virtually) doubled in the past couple of weeks alone! When the sounds were playing fine, the metaverse averaged about 20,000 simultaneous avatars and now it is pushing the envelope beyond the 40,000 mark!

Well, I am hoping Pauline/Free returns again to give Second Life a Second Chance.

At the very least, I managed to invite some friends over to take a few more snapshots of with her to celebrate her in-world debut...

A few minutes later, my friend Bibbe Oh dropped by to say hello. This was at the point that we were trying to impress Pauline (Free) with our sensuous sine tones but for some reason, those sine bits never seemed to transmit that afternoon...sigh!

For awhile, we thought that maybe the lack of transmitted sound had to do with the lagginess of the room so we moved to a more open area known us locals as Virtual Haidplatz. Sugar Seville, the curator of Odyssey Island, joined us there to also say hello and to try and help us figure out the situation that was blocking us from giving a flawless demo of our orchestral instrument(s). Unfortunately, the sound situation did not improve...sigh!

Eventually, we simply gave up on the whole sound check idea and decided to give Pauline a quick tour of some other landmarks on Odyssey Island such as....of course, my own PR office! ;-) Since I was in full-throttle PR mode, I invited my glamorous German art-blogger friend Olga Wunderlich to drop by since she happened to be in-world at the time. My glass of red-wine started to get a bit cold (maybe I am just cold-blooded or something) so I warmed it up by standing in the middle of my fire which by the way, is still successfully burning a bunch of negative reviews written by disgruntled and jaded critics....heheheheh! Oh, I forgot to mention that I am proud of this pic because I think I successfully captured the stylish aloofness that is second-nature to all those involved in the SL art world ;-)

I guess it was just a matter of time before we had to show Pauline the blight (not a typo, I really mean "blight" and not "bright") side of life on Odyssey Island. I think the fact that Ian Ah sleeps in a squat directly underneath my PR office is proof that virtual worlds are not always the Utopias they pretend to be. Yes my friends, there is a digital divide in Second Life and it is deepening...er...widening ;-)

I hope you like this photo. I managed to get everyone to line up for an official group shot in front of the main gallery on Odyssey Island called Exhibit A. By the way, I have a solo show there next month..stay tuned!

...and here is one additional angle of us doing one more group pose before saying our mutual farewells....

OSLOspace AUDIOspace and BIBBEspace...

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at Susanne Jaschko's Urban Interface in Oslo (RL) and in Amsterdam (SL)...

***BREAKING NEWS FROM THE NEAR FUTURE!***

The curator Susanne Jaschko has blogged about this event.

Here we are in Amsterdam waiting to score some.....er... well....actually....waiting for our orchestral colleagues Gumnosphistai Nurmi (Norway) and Nnoiz Papp (Germany) to find us. This sort of hide and seek theme seems to be deja vu for me as I did something very similar as an avatar in my past life... Anyways, it turns out that Susanne Jaschko and her audience was on the hunt with them to find us "spontaneously" performing Miulew Takahe's composition, Fragula. I was unsure if Dr. Jaschko had her own avatar lurking in the alleyways of Amsterdam but one can always hold conspiracy theories and daydream...I mean, trying to make Amsterdam look like Oslo is indeed some sort of Artworld conspiracy!

Ok, this pic was taken at the point where Gumno and Nnoiz finaly found us...All it took was one blast of Nnoiz's fog horn and he was able to locate their position in relation to the Orchestra and of course, using sonar in an "orchestral" context is nothing new ;-) Once they found us, Gumno and Nnoiz quickly joined in the Fragulan fray and began performing with us as if they had actually rehearsed with us ;-) Speaking of Fragula, I made a big boo-boo when criticizing Bingo Onomatopoeia's new Fragula version number as being non-linear...I thought he accidentally "upgraded" from v12.0 to v9.0...I did not read between the lines, because there was actually a decimal in front so it makes sense that v0.9 is newer than v.12...For the record, Bingo forgave me by saying that "even Einstein failed at Math"....sigh! Bingo at least gave me the official link for understanding the software versioning conventions... Maybe I had better cut back on that decimalized Dutch Hash and learn to leave the red-light district, eh? ;-)

Hey there OSLOspace, AUDIOspace and BIBBEspace cadets!

First of all, I want to officially announce that this posting is actually my 100th posting for this blog! I would like to thank all my readers for providing me with the necessary delusion(s) to believe that this blog is something worth writing...thanks a zillion! ;-)

Saturday the 15th was quite exhausting yet productive. The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse had two intense gigs and even my relaxation session with Bibbe Oh felt intense....can I ever relax? Hmmmm..maybe I can...

Since I do not think I have any more gigs lined up for the rest of September, I think I am going to use this precious "spare" time to get off my pixellated ass and continue composing my next official AOM composition to be premiered at Wien Modern in Vienna called Riesenrad.

Anyway, I just thought I would share those tidbits with you...If you do not see many blog postings from now until October, that is probably why...

I have just shown you the OSLO event in Amsterdam and now, I will show you some pix of the Audiospace concert before concluding this posting with my post-orchestral personal reception and gratuitous photo-shoot with Bibbe Oh...

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's performance at the Audiospace Festival at Open Space...

Here are a few of us having a seat and doing a bit of a meditation blitzkrieg before some of the audience members arrive... Gumno is disclosing a few RL details that most of us share behind the scenes...many of us SLebrities in RL are stay-at-home parents...sigh! If you have a close zoom towards this pic, you will notice tiny voice-chat icons above Miulew Takahe and Humming Perra (Audiospace Curator)...Yes, Second Life now has embedded voice chat capabilities. Miulew's silky smooth voice was a perfect compliment to Humming's hushed adminisrative tones. You will also notice that the score for Miulew's official Audiospace submission, Rue Blanche is available for all to see...Miulew later gave the Open Space gallery a demo of the process behind the 3 performed compositions...

As you can see, some more audience members are gradually arriving on the scene. It was great to see so many avatars at this event....alot of these people are good friends and important artists in RL so the whole experience was quite encouraging. Oh, I forgot to mention a minor detail for you...Yes, it is true... Since previous blog postings, my coffee cup has increasingly super-sized itself. For this event, I was in a generous mood so I shared the wealth since the refills are virtually endless anyway.... I am desperately trying to remember the name of the person who gave me this coffee at the earlier event in Oslo...sigh! Miulew has recently informed me that Merak Ur was the one who have me the new coffee but my mind is so foggy, I can barely absorb that information. I think I need another sip of steamy coffee!

This pix shows a little more clearly the size of the in-world audience... Yes, it is true, my new buddy Blued Food arrived at the exact moment this pic was taken...I guess I am getting too SLeepy these days to spend quality time in Photoshop censoring out my private life...a celebrity's life is public property anyways, right? ;-)

Here we are playing our classic Fadheit that was composed by the Orchestra's founder, Maximillian Nakamura. I should point out that those squares you see on the screen are usually only for the eyes of the Orchestral performers but this time, Miulew gave the Open Space audience a behind-the-scenes demo of the mechanics of this particular telepathic user-interface...

Here is a great close-up of myself and Gog Mannonen. I actually know Gog in RL but due to privacy issues, I cannot disclose Gog's RL identity. I really hope Gog joins the Orchestra as I am sure some very unique compositions would begin to take shape in our repetoire...

So, after two consecutive concerts, I was feeling rather burned out so I decided to wind down a bit with my new friend (not so new in RL) Bibbe Oh...

My post-orchestral personal reception with Bibbe Oh at the Third Rail Gallery of Current Art...

Here I am enjoying some red-wine and refined gallery art with Bibbe Oh. I did not realize how much shorter she is than me! I tried my best not to accidentally nudge her into the sculpture next to her...I was worried it might tip over and shatter...yikes! Bibbe was telling me that she does some hosting here sometimes with Channing Oh but officially, the gallery (a tribute to Al Hansen of Fluxus fame) is owned by her friends (who also happen to be siblings), Cleo and Demara Hultcrantz.

We eventually went over to Bibbe's personal studio and sat underneath a sandwich...well, a photo of one, anyway! All the photos on the wall were taken by Bibbe herself...there are more to show you if you persist with me a sec and continue to scroll down...

My colleague in Second Front, Man Michinaga eventually dropped by to hang out with us....yaaaay!

In this pic, you get a better sense of what Bibbe's own photography work looks like. She takes found pix of murders and suicides (and yes, sandwiches) and actually embroiders them onto paper in RL....whoa! Sounds eerie, zany and creepy-crawly to me!!! Hmmm...what do you think of the premeditated murder wound on that guy's forehead? Man is pointing to something much more abstract yet in a sense, just as extreme...lets just say it kinda looks like a starfish (use your imagination!)...

Ok, that was my day in a nutshell! Good thing I scored some of that red wine at Bibbe's place because I could sure use some extra time in "R&RL" (RL + R&R = R&RL)...

SLippery Magical Mystery Rehearsal Tour...

If you cannot see this embedded video, click on the direct YouTube link here. Here are some of the Odyssey Island scenesters hanging out on the party bus known as the gr00ver m00ver over East of Odyssey at the Ultramarine Column - Unsong Song #17.

Ultramarine Column by Adam Ramona. gr00ver m00ver by Fau Ferdinand and Zodial Semple.

Foghorn & Arabic Flair by Nnoiz Papp.

On the bus:
Fau Ferdinand, Adam Ramona, Nnoiz Papp, Wirxli Flimflam, Miulew Takahe,Evo Szuyuan, Bingo Onomatopoeia

This pic was actually taken moments after the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's rehearsal du jour but it seems that visually speaking, this pic seemed the most appropriate to begin this blog posting with...

Hey there Audiospace addicts, SLippery sorcerors and double decker dronemongers...

On the afternoon of September 11th (see the blog posting below), the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse rehearsed yet again for saturday's performance at Open Space in Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) as part of the Audiospace festival.

This rehearsal was also a chance to finally meet 3 of my new friends in person: Bibbe Oh, Faust Saenz and Cleo Hultcrantz. It was great to meet them all finally. I did actually take a pic of Bibbe Oh in addition to the other two but for some reason, I cannot locate the pic to blog her on this posting..sigh! However, Evo Szuyuan took a great pic of her. I guess I will have to ask for a photo-shoot with her soon enough.

Well anyways, we spent some time rehearsing 3 of AOM's classics from the immortal repetoire before going on a Magical Mystery Bus Tour across East (of) Odyssey Island with Fau Ferdinand at the helm. During most of that journey, I was (almost literally) "asleep at the wheel" but eventually, we ended up at Ian's screening lounge to give everyone a sneak peek at Evo Szuyuan's new and improved machinima of my composition SLippery SLope that has recently been tweaked by AOM's prime-mover, Miulew Takahe...

Well, with out further faffing around, here are some pix to help illustrate the more notable events of this very memorable day...

Ok ok, I am not blogging my photos in a linear chronologial order as this whole bus tour began at the end of the rehearsal but hey...at least with two consecutive bus pix in a row, there is the illusion of historical continuity due to the visual proximity of the bus images one after the other...uh....right? ;-) To see additional photos of this bus tour, check out Evo's pic and/or Nnoiz Papp's photo page.

So, here is the first pic from the actual rehearsal. We are sitting down in das kleine field recordings festival's space on Odyssey Island. We have decided to play Miulew's seminal piece Rue Blanche while sitting down on our pixellated yet poofy cushions...it was a good thing that this sine-tone soundscape was ambient enough to relax our tushies and drink endless refills of coffee...aaaahhhhh!

Here is what the revised version of Miulew's compositon Fragula now looks like from the orchestra performer's perspective. Apparently, this version 9.0 of the interface is actually NEWER than the version 12.0 that we were previously using(????) Such downgrading usually belongs solely within the (il)logical domain of Linden Labs ;-). Regardless, the new sounds and player-HUD has evolved from the original version in a very exciting way....check it out on saturday to see what I mean. In general, Bingo Onomatopoeia is the mastermind behind the construction of this musical performance HUDs and we are ever grateful for his willingness to design such wonderful interfaces...

Ok, I am glad this pic was taken at the very end of this rehearsal session because it works well visually since it fulfills the "end credits" motif that every blog posting should conform to ;-)
Here are a bunch of us (including my new friend, Blued Food) checking out the SLippery SLope video. If you zoom closer to the pic, you will notice that Gog Mannonen signed online at this time...Gog soon joined us and could not stop giggling during the screening and had difficulty containing all the "lol"s bubbling inside...maybe Gog was in performance mode? One will never know for sure but that is the default mannerism on Odyssey Island :-)

911 - Wirxli at Ground Zero...

Hey there NEO-CONspiracy theorists, grounded zeroes, and 911-dialers!

To commemorate the September 11th terrorist attack from way back in 2001 (ancient history in SL), I visted the official Ground Zero Twin Tower memorial site that was erected for the 6th year anniversary of that fateful morning during the growing pains of the 21st century.

I was hoping to take a pic of myself atop one of the towers but I guess even this formerly harmless tourist activity is now seen as some form of attempted terrorism since the property did not allow for anyone to fly higher than a few feet off the ground...sigh! I mean, what is the big deal? If the Americans want to celebrate the virtues of freedom in the face of terrorists, I should be allowed to fly freely to the top of the tower to take a tourist pic right? Isn't Second Life supposed to be more liberal and freedom loving than my first life? Sigh! My good friend Lior Humphreys and I (not pictured in this posting) tried to find a way up but simply could not locate such access.

Oh well, this paranoia will all pass...all Terrorism is temporary in Second Life anyways...

Wirxli ON THE SPOT!

SPOTTED! Wirxli FLimFlam once again makes an appearance in the SLebrity gossip section of The Avastar on Page 16 of Issue #36.

This is from the German language edition of The AvaStar Issue #36.

Hey there SLebrity, Celebrity and assorted fans of a spotty variety!

Well, I was trying to take a brief vacation from blogging but sure enough, the media's limelight...er... the spotlight always seems to find me and manages to successfully illuminate my pink hair and drag me back into the fray.

So, as you can see from the above evidence, the tabloid media-zine known as The AvaStar found me speaking on a panel at the xxXtenXion festival in Regensburg and even successfully squeezed a soundbyte from me where I admitted that the magazine itself helped to shape my identity....and despite what you usually read in the tabloids, this time what I was quoted on saying is 100% accurate! For the record, I REALLY said that the AvaStar has molded me into who I am...in fact, they are the core and essence of my very being! Wow!

Check out these other photos below for additional mentions of me that help to further illustrate the excesses of my roccoco ego that is swirling and spiralling out of control (ok, that part is a tabloid-esque lie) within the sassy media frenzy known as SLebrity Life....

This is the full page spread of the "a-stars" gossip column.

Here are Evo Szuyuan (videographer - seated on the pic's left hand side) and Miulew Takahe (coordinator - seated on the pic's right hand side) from the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse previewing the new and improved machinima document of my recent in-world orchestral composition, SLippery SLope. They seem to be watching this sneak-preview at Ian Ah's lounge on Odyssey Island.

Here is Evo's personal nomination for me as the "Best Performing Artist"... Please visit this link here and vote for me on Enniv Zarf's Krystal Epic website.