Orchestra in OSLO (NOTAM)...

Here is a still from yet another performance of SLippery SLope - a piece I originally composed for London's PGUP Festival (curated by Spinster Voom) a few months ago. Since I lent my cello to our new AOM performer Humming Perra, I decided to undertake formal conducting duties this time. It seemed to work and look much better with me formally conducting the composition. I think I even managed to get the SLippery SLopes ascended in a record time of 15 academic minutes! ;-)

Hey there, NOTAMizers, Oslo-centric Orchestra fans, Virtual Vikings and Norwegian Woodgoblins!

Happy Halloween!

I certainly am envious of all you RL and SL Trick-o-Treaters out there as today has been more about "work" than about "play"... Well, work is play and play is work but...you know what I mean! I guess you could say that I was up to turning tricks more than merely tasting treats...sigh! ;-)

I was so busy today, I was not even able to make time for the official AvaStar Halloween dress-up party....sigh! You know a SLebrity is too busy when they cannot even attend their routine token appearances for the media.

Anyways, in addition to fetching documentation for Second LIVE 2007 and rehearsing for Second Front's next performance, I performed with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse today for our 2nd show in Oslo (Norway). This time, we streamed live into the NOTAM centre in Oslo. Our in-world host was fellow orchestral colleague-in-crime, Gumnosophistai Nurmi (Leif Inge in RL)and we performed many classic compositions from AOM's official repetoire.

Speaking of the concept of "repetoire", this is why you have been seeing so many blog postings of me wearing the same backpack and interface many times over... Nope, it is not just a form of deja vu, you are also noticing probably by now that the Orchestra plays many of the same pieces from our developing "repetoire" of audio/visual standards.

Therefore, if you are not quite sick to death yet from seeing the exact same compositions (at different angles and audience members, admittedly), then feel free to binge more on these photo-documents below...the old is new again and then it is well... sorta "new" again", right? ;-()...

...here is a slightly closer view of me conducting the next wave of SLippery SLackers on the pink SLope.

As you can see from this pic, about 88% of the performers (not that I was counting or anything) had successfully completed all 3 SLopes as the eager and enthusiastic audience below cheered them all along the way.

It may look like Goodwind Seiling finished last but she was a winner just like every other performer. I should emphasize that is was not about "winning" or "losing" but how stylish and graceful you are able to SLip off the SLopes. Goodwind ended my composition on a wonderful low...er... high note ;-)

Next up, we bathed in the sonically ambient glow of Adam Ramona's (Adam Nash in RL) installation called A Rose Heard at Dusk. This was a fun piece because I had to entertain the masses outside the installation while 3 of us performed the installation first before inviting everyone else inside. It was like a New-Music peep show or something ;-) Soon enough, we turned the installation into a jumped up party-fest...Oh, I should explain that one "plays" Adam's composition simply by moving around the differently coloured zones... So, if you do not know how to play a classical instrument, you might as well... JUMP, JUMP! Go Ahead, JUMP!

I think this pic is from our dress-rehearsal the day before. Speaking of dress-rehearsals, it looks like Maxxo Klaar did the most preparation for the event because his camoflage pants was perfectly colour coordinated with Adam's rose tinted Garden of Eden....YES!

Here is another rehearsal snapshot showing in detail how expansive the fog was.

Here is the only pic I took of us playing the mutant hybrid performance that blended Miulew Takahe's Fragula with Second Front colleague Gazira Babeli's sculptural installation, Come Together. This piece was so energetic, I lost track of my photographic abilities (or lack thereof)... and speaking of lacking in photo documentation...

...I was unable to get around to taking pix of Bingo Onomatopoeia's composition WNK and Miulew Takahe's other composition, Rue Blanche...sigh!

Ok, time to prepare for Saturday's Second Front performance at PERFORMA in NYC...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Blogged down with LIVE5 (2007)...

Yes, this is the official logo for Vancouver's LIVE Biennial of Performance Art 05 (2007). Since the theme was called "Public", I will probably never know who originally designed this logo...sigh! You are probably not used to seeing a non-SL image on my blog but do not worry, just scroll down to see some screenshots after my minor opus-ette of rambling text below...

Hey there avatar performance art fans, public exhibitionists and impatient historians!

Yes, it is true, I have not been very active on my blog lately and this is directly due to the fact that I have lots of documentation to prepare for the official LIVE05 archives for the LIVE Biennial of Performance Art website and blog.

Since this was a mega-project that literally took place last week, please do not expect immediate historicization of all the artists I have invited to participate in the event called Participatory Dissent co-curated in RL by a former member of Second Front, named Loveless Finsbury (a.k.a. Natalie Loveless).

Speaking of Second Front, Rubaiyat Shatner (a.k.a. James Morgan) was the curator for the Second Front performance at Second LIVE. The gallery he represents is called Ars Virtua.

Speaking of LIVE, Skawennati Tricia Fragnito was the event's official guest curator as she represents the Aboriginal Territories of Cyberspace (AbTec) network.

So, please stay tuned in the next week or two on either this blog, the Second Front blog and/or the official LIVE blog for a mythological mention of any one of these performance artists (in no particular order): Second Front, Fau Ferdinand, Tran Spire, Nyko Nakamura, Man Michinaga, Eba Hax, Bea Box, iHeart Kuri, and LadyJustice Beaumont.

In the meantime, I wanted to entertain you by showing some more gratuitous pictures of myself. ;-)

To try and perpetuate the illusion/delusion that my blog is not entirely devoted to myself and my smashing looks, these photos will also show me posing with some of the performance artists that I managed to help co-curate...

Photo by Jesse Scott. Here is a great pic of Bea Box and myself posing at Eba Hax's (a.k.a. Tagny Duff's) performance installation called Skin Relations. For a little bit of context, Bea's own performance consisted of living life as an edible gingerbread-man inside a Tee-Pee while wearing an Indian head-dress. So, once Bea's body parts had been entirely consumed by the hungry art-world masses, all that remained was a shadow of her former self with the exception of her symbolic head-dress. It is fortunate that I managed to bring her along to Eba's performance since Eba had lots of free skin to spare...phew! I must say that Bea's freshly skinned avatar looks alot like a bot I once created...
At any rate, I promise to blog Bea's original performance very soon!.

Photo by Jesse Scott.Here is another pic of Bea Box and myself at Eba Hax's opening. I had Westernfront Obscure (a.k.a. Jesse Scott on day #1)ensure that a couple of pix were taken to show off both the texture of Bea's new skin-graft as well as the Tron-like lines of my official LIVE jumpsuit.

Photo by Jesse Scott. Here I am with Maxxo Klaar of Maxxopic photography and Avatar Orchestra Metaverse fame. We are bemused by the cubed instructions for Eba Hax's Skin Relations performance.

Photo by Jesse Scott. Here is a side-profile of my co-curator, xox Voyager a.k.a. Skawennati Tricia Fragnito from the Aboriginal Territories of Cyberspace network (AbTec).

Ok, please scroll down for postings that have nothing to do with LIVE...phew!

AvaStar Orchestra Metaverse...

Here is a clipping from The Avastar Issue #45 (page 12) about the Avatar Ochestra Metaverse's performance at the Avastar news headquarters which was streamed live into the Zollverein in Essen, Germany as part of the official closing ceremonies for the 1st Annual Architecture and Design Competition in Second Life that was hosted by the Ars Electronia festival in Linz, Austria.

Here is the same article but this time excerpted from the German language edition.

Here is a view of the English Avastar article from the perspective of the 2 page spread.

How many Orchestras do you know in RL with the guts to perform in an indoor swimming pool owned by the biggest tabloid in the world?

Hey there fellow AvaStars and New Music Party-Hardies,

Phew! I have barely recovered from the rehearsal of my new Orchestral composition, titled "Riesenrad" (rehearsal archives will eventually be posted alongside the world premiere at Wien Modern in November).... This virtual fatigue has been augmented by my curatorial, archiving and moderation duties at the Second LIVE component of Vancouver's LIVE Biennial of Performance Art. All of this has literally just taken place last week and within minutes of achieving freedom, I was on-call once again to perform this morning with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse for a special gig at the AvaStar tabloid headquarters in SL (and also, at one of their HQ locations somewhere in RL in Essen, Germany). In true SLebrity fashion, we played in their HQ's indoor swimming pool!

We performed Miulew Takahe's Fragula composition twice and followed-up the performance with an exclusive interview with the AvaStar staff moderated by their Editor-in-Chief, Regis Braathens. Unfortunately, the composer was unable to attend to conduct Fragula but Maxxo Klaar did a great job filling in for Miulew.

Here are some more photos...

At this point, most of the AvaStar staff (reporters and editors) as well my SLebrity colleagues began to arrive... It was at this time, I felt it was appropriate to break out (just for myself) the champagne glass ;-)

It was around this time that the glamourous Maxim-Gal #95 and famous fashion designer, Callie Cline asked if there was a party going on. Well, it certainly looked like a party but alas, it was yet another new music recital - sorry to disappoint! I guess it probably did not help that I was chugging a luxurious glass of sparkling champagne while performing in zero-gravity - that is usually a recipe for a party...Heheheheheh ;-)

My performance with Second Front in Brussels...

Portrait of Wirxli by Evo Szuyuan. For the direct photo-link, click here.

Hey there Belgian, Dutch, Italian Flemish and Frankish performance art fans,

There is finally some documentation online of my performance with Second Front at iMAL in Brussels (RL) and Odyssey Island (SL).

For this performance, we re-installed Auguste Rodin's Gates of Hell and gave the audience some rather hellish poses from the Gate itself. During most of the performance, I was a flaming thinker (who would have guessed? heheheheheh).

We consider this performance to be a first in our series of "Living Sculptures" and "Living Performance Installations" in Second Life.

This blockbuster European event was curated by our affiliated critic from Italy, Domenico Quaranta as well as the Island curator, Sugar Seville. This performance was streamed live as a gateway between Second Life and Gallery Life.

To read my colleague AliseIborg Zhaoying's blog about the event (which includes video-documentation), please click here at the official Second Front blog.

Also, be sure to check out some of the collected photo-documentation....

I - Marco Manray's Photo-Reportage of this performance at MyFirstSecondLife.

II - Evo Szuyuan's Picassa Photographs...

III - Second Front colleague Gazira Babeli's Gate Photographs.