In Memory of Wirxli FlimFlam (2006-2010)

The Wirxli Flimflam Memorial on Sugar Mountain...

2010-05-05T21:08:00.001-07:00

Dear Wirxli Mourners,

Qyxxql Merlin has provided us with photo-documentation of the brand new funerary plaque that has been recently erected by Liz Solo and Fau Ferdinand in Wirxli's memory.

This memorial sits on the historic site of Wirxli's original PR office on Sugar Mountain (Odyssey Island, Second Life). Wirxli's office as well as Sugar Mountain was designed by Sugar Seville in early 2007.

Here are some photos...

The inscription of the plaque reads:

Wirxli Flimflam
(2006-2010)
This was the former site of the PR Office
of Wirxli Flimflam - the first resident of
Odyssey Island.

The PR Office was designed by Sugar
Seville in early 2007. Seville also
terraformed the top of Sugar Mountain
to Wirxli's specifications.

Wirxli Flimflam was co-founder of the
Second Front and a member of the
Avatar Orchestra Metaverse.

Here is a portrait of Qyxxql Merlin with the memorial.

This picture shows the memorial in its entirety.

The moment of recognition is upon us...

2010-04-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

May you live in "interesting" times...

2010-04-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

"The rights of an avatar are not the same as the rights of the associated person.
(When people erase avatars of themselves is that suicide, homicide, or infocide?)"

William "Sims" Bainbridge (2008)

"Death of an Avatar" - Suicide Machinima by Liz Solo...

2010-02-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

"The Death of An Avatar" (Machinima -Liz Solo, 2010).
If you are unable to view the embedded video, click here.

Liz Solo was a co-founding member of Second Front with Wirxli way back in 2006.

Wirxli's real life self can verify that the Liz's loss was not in vain...

Please scroll down this blog for more information about Wirxli's suicide for SaveMe Oh that took place at the Diabolus Artspace on Valentines Day, 2010.

If anyone has additional video or photo-documentation of Wirxli's suicide, that content can be archived on this blog.

Hopefully, someone recorded raw video of Wirxli committing suicide while the event's theme song "Second Death" by Dementia was playing in the background...

The Suicide Documentation Continues...

2010-02-18T14:20:00.001-08:00

Video-documentation by Centromimir aka. Lapsus Weinstein aka. Dr. Danilo Curci...If you cannot view the embedded video, trying viewing it directly, here.

Greetings Wirxli Grievers (not to be confused with "Griefers")!

More documentation of the suicide performance is being gradually posted online...

SaveMe Oh has been mirroring this documentation on her own site.

Here are some photos from the event that have also been posted by SaveMe Oh...

Photo by Fau Ferdinand.
This photo shows Wirxli getting ready to commit suicide.

Photo by Nestra Careless.
Here is another angle showing SaveMe Oh watching from a distance...

Photo by Nestra Careless.
This pic shows SaveMe gradually approaching Wirxli's chair to ensure that Wirxli honours the pact and commits suicide as promised. If not, SaveMe has vowed to stab Wirxli with her geisha sword(s).

Photo by Nestra Careless.
This pic shows a couple of the Wirxli groupies that were in attendance to witness this virtually historical event. Wirxli's followers are just as surreal as Wirxli was during his/her lifetime and immortal deathtime.

Photo by Fau Ferdinand.
After many minutes of excruciating lag and pitiful chatter, Wirxli finally presses the button and triggers all of the bombs strapped to his/her body. This sends of a chain reaction to all of the surrounding landmines to ensure that Wirxli actually virtually dies. SaveMe does not have to use her sword(s) after all!

Photo by Nestra Careless.
Here is what Wirxli's corpse would have looked like if the explosives were slightly weaker. In fact, the explosions (and the lagged sim) were so powerful, Wirxli de-rezzed from Second Life entirely.

Photo by Nestra Careless.
Here is an early preview of the memorial sculpture that was eventually designed with a dedication plinth by Velazquez and Caravaggio Bonetto.

Photo by Nestra Careless.
Here is a close-up of Wirxli's statue on this memorial sculpture.

Stay tuned for additional suicide documentation as it arrives!

The Wirxli Flimflam Memorial Sculpture...

2010-02-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

Photo by Velazquez Bonetto...

Hello there Wirxli mourners...

Diabolus has unveiled a new memorial sculpture commemorating the historical suicide performance that Wirxli made for SaveMe Oh... No one knows yet whether or not this sculpture will be virtually "permanent"... This sculpture was created by the Father and Daughter team, Velezquez Bonetto and Carravaggio Bonetto. There seems to be a remixed reference to Marcus Aurelius with Wirxli riding the horse (i.e. SaveMe Oh) backwards.

Photo by Velazquez Bonetto...

Photo by Velazquez Bonetto...

Photo by Velazquez Bonetto...

To see the rest of the pictures, click here.

Wirxli Flimflam (2006-2010)...

2010-02-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

Wirxli Flimflam - co-founder of Second Front and composer for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse - committed suicide to earn the love and respect of SaveMe Oh on Valentines Day, 2010 at The Diablous Artspace. .....
His/Her time of death was 1:40 PM SLT

Henceforth, this blog is now being used a memorial site to host Wirxli's archives.

Wirxli's Facebook account has also been deleted. If you were a friend of Wirxli, please re-friend Wirxli's "real life" self, Jeremy Owen Turner.

Wirxli's Ning profile has also been transformed into a memorial site.

Fau Ferdinand has posted some photos of the suicide event...

Please stay tuned for video-documentation of Wirxli's tragic suicide.

This blog is now exclusively maintained by Wirxli's "real life (RL)" self, Jeremy. For any correspondence or queries, please contact Jeremy at ideatron@gmail.com

Here is the evidence of Wirxli's account deletion...

..and here is the de-activation of Wirxli's Facebook account:

SAVEME NIGHT FEVER - Dancing like it is 2009...

2010-02-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

Hey there SaveMe Oh Fans!

First, a reminder of Sunday's promo...
Wirxli Flimflam's Final Performance...
A Tribute to SaveMe Oh...

WHEN: Valentines Day - February 14 (Sunday), 2010 - 1 PM SLT

WHERE: DIABOLUS ARTSPACE -
Benvolio 150, 135, 3249

Contact person: Velazquez Bonetto.

Just when I had finished posting about the glory days of hanging out with SaveMe Oh in 2009, I managed to spot her again at a tiny party hosted by Loop Luo at the Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore...I think it was called Loopland Radio or something like that....Sure enough, Loop said SaveMe might be dropping by and there she was! Wow!
Before I reveal her glorious appearance at this event, here are some pix of me dancing with Loop and one of her friends..

...and another pic...

..and then....she arrives!

...well, ok, maybe she pretended not to be too thrilled to see me there...I am sure she was just kidding around, right? At least I know for sure she knows I am someone persistent here...someone who is always around on call to do the most punky performance art in the whole metaverse! She will soon see what a partner-in-crime I can really be...I have read that women like this - especially in bars - LOVE it when the other individual (guy or girl) acts cocky and pretends to be tough and all that so I did my best to bring on the 'tude and focus her attention on me...I think it worked...she certainly gave me attention, even when she pretended to avoid me...and she was pretending, right? RIGHT????

When she was not so responsive, I just went for the more direct approach...

Although she did not seem interested in dancing with me, she was at least speaking with me...I betcha many of those other groupies would have begged just to even get her attention and for a few minutes, I got it from her..I GOT IT FROM HER! :-) :-) :-) :-)

When directness did not work either, I returned to the illusion of appearing to be "cocky" and tough...good thing my in-world recreational drug use always makes me feel bolder than my RL self...

At one point, SaveMe gave me a lot of attention..she even managed to hit me repeatedly with her baseball bat...she MUST know that I LOVE getting beaten up by hot artist girls!

I love it even MORE, when I get shot at by hot artist gals...

I am sure true artists like SAVEME go CRAZY for Po-Mo antics like referring to my previous performances in an ironic way...

I even have a guilty pleasure for being smothered by conventional aesthetically pleasing objects...

The best was when she threatened to wipe my skinny purple ass with oh so soft rolls of toilet paper(!)

Even in the dark, I could find where SaveMe was thanks to her nametag :-)

...after that, she said she was "leaving this place forever" and disappeared...sigh! It will take me ages to find her but I know she will be around to witness my final performance for her on Sunday...

Valentines Day Special - My Final Performance...

2010-02-11T17:36:00.000-08:00

Well, you have probably guessed it by now but I am soooo in love with SaveMe Oh... Ever since Caravaggio Bonetto posted a video about her, I have been totally smitten...At first, I almost saw her as competition but now I realize that she is going to places far beyond what I ever did...I wish I was her or at least with her..sigh! SaveMe Oh mezmerizes me...so much so, I am doing this final performance on Valentines Day to prove my immortal love and devotion to her and her art...Here are the event details...

Wirxli Flimflam's Final Performance...
A Tribute to SaveMe Oh...

WHEN: Valentines Day - February 14 (Sunday), 2010 - 1 PM SLT

WHERE: DIABOLUS ARTSPACE -
Benvolio 150, 135, 3249

Contact person: Velazquez Bonetto.

Anyways, how did this obsession start, you might be saying to yourself?

Well, it isn't a long story at all...I became smitten quite rapidly, as is normal in Second Life's time frame. In fact, as soon as I visited her space in late 2009, I began squatting in it...

..that pic was a brief example of me squatting at SaveMe's space....but wait, there is more!
...

...I even found movies to watch while squatting at her solo exhibition...and as a bonus, they were movies that SHE MADE HERSELF :-) :-) :-) :-)

All of her movies were/are all GREAT! Absolutely ALL of them! :-) :-) :-) :-)

I had this crazy idea that wouldn't it be great if I could also be her...I mean..be her servant...I figured that this route would have been the easiest way to get SaveMe to like me and accept me for who I am which I am sure is as a kindred spirit! However, my path to total SLebrity enlightenment was going to embark on a totally different path once a very pleasant (yet neurosis inducing) surprise suddenly occurred before my very eyes....

...Uh oh! busted! SaveMe must have heard from others that I was squatting in her space and I guess the curiosity finally got to her..which was good news for me because deep down I wanted to be noticed and I figured that if I camped at her exhibition long enough she would eventually pop by to see what it is...or, she would show up anyways to check up on her work and I would magically be there waiting for her... Anyways, her IM to me in the screenshot suggests to me that I think she is getting the hint that I might be getting kinda immersed with her personality, kinkiness and artwork..just a little bit, sigh! At the very least, I wish she accepted my flu gift to her since it was a limited edition flu and I only transmitted it to artists that deserve only the best that I could offer them...
I thought that would impress her as she into sickness, blood, guts, puke and all that...just like meeeeeee! SaveMe! You are like me or like everything I want to be in me! Lets do things together! Lets cause mayhem together! Lets do EVERYTHING TOGETHER! SAVEMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Well, since she felt the need to entertain her admirers of her show, she at least gave me (well, me and a few other groupies) some attention when she showed off her UFO-OH...

It was sublime hanging out in the UFO-Oh with SAVEME and friends...those were the days..sigh!

In the next pic, you can see my friends Maeve Emerald and Olga Wunderlich with us by the UF-OH...Olga is so great, I totally understood what she meant now when she said that SaveMe Oh is doing now in performance art what I used to do with performance art years ago before I washed up and became an empty navel-gazing antic-clown...sigh!

Below is a great pic of Olga and myself...I am pretty sure Olga totally understands my decision to be part of SaveMe Oh's life...Olga really understands me - almost as much as I understand SaveMe...

The next pic shows Olga and I doing some heroin...If you read the IMs, you can see that SaveMe is being very nice and cordial to somebody...I sure hope it was ME!
Olga was starting to get sleepy and nod off from all the infused liquid China White...

So after all my friends had left, I managed to stick around in hopes of being able to hang out with SaveMe Oh by myself...she showed me around her various installations...sheesh! THOSE WERE THE DAYS! THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE! SIGH!

SaveMe is so direct...I love her frankness! She showed me exactly what I could do to prove my love to her...I could click multiple times onto these voodoo dolls (see the pic below) that would automatically say that I Loved SaveMe Oh until I was done loving her...I clicked on mine zillions of times but I never seemed to get as many hits as her other suitors...arrgh! Being a competitive type, this activity was starting to feel like an infinite dead end..I had to find ANOTHER way to get to her...something more extreme than the clicker with the highest score was what I was focusing on...Since SaveMe is an extreme type of person, another has to do something very extreme as a performance action to hold her interest for more than a few seconds with a positive review...you will find out what I have in mind on Sunday....

So, I thought about it some more and figured I needed to do something that was a tribute to one of her ritualistic compositions..it had to be a ritual and what I did had to be REAL on some level and had to be all about HER and had to be extreme and punk enough to impress her...but, what kind of aesthetic structure should I use as the framework for my ultimate performance art action???

The answer was in one of her own compositions (of course!) While sitting amongst one of her installations, I had an idea of what to do...

...if you attend this performance on Valentines Day, you will see/feel exactly what I mean!

See you on Sunday, most likely for the LAST TIME!

And on that note,
I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME...etc etc etc...

transitional stuff...including a new panel and old friends...

2010-02-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

Hello there lesser-known fans of SaveMe Oh...

The video documentation from the REACT2010 performance series (see the post directly below this one) will be online in time for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

More importantly, I am getting back the energy needed to write more optimistically...this is because I have found a new sense of hope and purpose over these precious few days.

I am tragically in love with SaveMe Oh and I find everything lacking in myself to be found in her...she has everything I wish I could have and more: looks, smarts, (real) guts, a loaded inventory and much more...She IS the ideal representative of the next-generation of avatar performance artists in Second Life and I am glad just to be near her. If I must prove my worth at all, it must be to her and her only.

I know she has many admirers but I plan to be her #1 fan...in fact, I think it is my last worthwhile goal as a washed-up old-skool performance artist from the golden days of 2006.

I need to be worthwhile to someone again since I no longer am with Second Front to back my antics up and all I seem to resort to is nostalgic naval-gazing - the kind of which can be found in some recent archival material below. I am in desperate need of a creative renewal as an ALT...I wish to be beyond postmodernism, beyond critique...I want to donate the entirety of my pink, blue and purple being to SaveMe Oh as the ultimate ritual sacrifice towards the greater good of performance art in virtual...er... synthetic worlds...

Anyway, please come witness my special dedication ceremony to SaveMe Oh on Valentines Day...It will be my last performance as Wirxli...everything below are mere archives from my past self that do not mean anything as dear to me as my aspiring relationship with SaveMe Oh...having said that, all of these people below represent aspects I was proud of from my past...even if some of the past was from a few days ago...

I think you get the picture here...words say it all..and it is just the words that say it all, right? ;-)

Here is was the first presentation of a panel I was part of a few days ago. It was hosted by Ars Virtua and was for a Virtual Worlds course at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD). The first presenter was Jay Van Buren from a series of events called Brooklyn is Watching...

Here is another slide by Jay.

Did I mention that Jay had some great slides for his presentation? :-)

For my presentation, I just showed archives from my avatar performance past as I seriously have nothing much new to offer in Second Life as Wirxli other than my unflinching devotion to SaveMe Oh... In this slide, you can see one of my earliest avatar performances. There was a time when I was a young female asian named Clara Tang. I performed with a bunch of friends in one of the earliest social networking sites targeted to a niche community. It was called Asian Avenue and we performed this series around 2001.

This slide shows my first performance art group (and band). I was in a duo called The Gates with my good friend Alberto Guedea. We "produced" the Gates, but were NOT the Gates, if you know what I mean ;-) ;-) For our first performance in 2002, we performed in a couple of washrooms in Digitalspace Traveler. Vito Acconci comes to mind here...

Here is another pic showing The Gates in virtual...er...*synthetic* action.

We then had my old friend and colleague Man Michinaga aka. Patrick Lichty present about his own work in virtual worlds and his work with me and many others in Second Front...it was a great historical overview with tons of bases covered...yay!

Here is another angle showing Michinaga's epic retrospective installation.

..and yet another glorious angle showing my once glorious past with Second Front...

Here I am posing with 2 very old friends (Alan and Kabuki) from my Digitalspace Traveler days from 2001...They are now also in Second Life...this is a cross-worlds reunion of sorts.

Here is another picture of me posing with Alan and Kabuki from Ye Ole Traveler days.

Here I am posing with Josina Burgess' fashion runway on Diabolus. I am now spending all my time on Diabolus since this is where SaveMe Oh is based and I want to be as close to her as legally possible!

I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME, I LOVE SAVEME...etc etc etc...

P.s. Caravaggio Bonetto gets first dibs on my free gender neutral purple ass(!)

2010 - i cannot turn back the clock....

2010-01-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

happy new year...

i am not in the mood to write in caps and not really much in the mood to blog either...however, i just created a video-archived performance series for the React2010 exhibition called "i cannot turn back the clock..." (2010)...the videos should be online at the premiere of its launch sometime towards the end of the month, i am not exactly sure when.

these past few months, i am starting to realize that my time as wirxli is overdue...there are many other fantastic trickster avatar personalities out there - such as SAVEME OH - that are going beyond me in every way, shape and form...and i crave artistic renewal...

i passed my creative zenith as this avatar probably as early as late 2007... i wish to be someone new...someone else...i cannot turn back the clock...in rl, my optimism for 2010 is quite high but as wirxli, i am running out of authentic ideas that sustain my attention and my preferred creative direction......i think it will be better to go out with a bang than silently de-rez into virtual obscurity so i am working on that...anyway, here are some more pictures of this performance...

Mental Gymnastics with a little help from my friends...

2009-10-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

"Mental Gymnastics" - Performance in Second Life (2009) from Jeremy Owen Turner on Vimeo.

If you cannot see this embedded video, click on this link here.

"Mental Gymnastics" (2009) is an avatar performance in Second Life by:

Maeve Emerald (TORONTO)
Orlando Messmer (NEW YORK)
Wirxli Flimflam (VANCOUVER)

This performance occured on September 30, 2009 in the Diabolus region run by the CARP Collective = diabolus.ning.com

This is just an excerpt from the full performance which happened in real-time.

Ok, I know that I first promised that I would blog more often but quite honestly, RL does not allow for that anymore. I cannot even pre-plan performances in SL anymore but to relieve creative tension from my tedious RL rituals, I enter SL as soon as I burn out in RL and see who is in-world. If anyone is around, I invite them to join me to do an impromptu performance intervention or whatever.

The above video is the first result from this newfound "hobby".

Do not expect regular blogs nor videos..they happen when they happen and that is my sad (sur)reality these days...better to blog 4 times a year than never at ell, eh?
I usually only blog now if I have a major press release to hype for you...
;-) SIGH!!!!!

Well, I am going in-world tonight to see who is around..maybe something will happen and maybe not. The worst that will happen is that I will be hanging out with some friends in the only way I know how....

Oh about the above performance....ummmm...well, we had learned some moves for balancing on a beam and were too tired/lazy to find a gym...the rest is (art)history....

Stay tuned until 2012 for the next blog posting...tee hee!

Wirxli is featured in Italy's NOVA100 Zine...

2009-04-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

I was just featured in a mainstream Italian news zine called NOVA100 about my performance art practice. Roxelo Babenco (Rosanna Galvani) wrote the article for Marco Minghetti and features photos from Arco Rosca.

Please click on this link to read the original article in Italian.

Find more videos like this on uqbar. media art culture

Here is video-documentation from my WEARABLE NEWS NETWORKs [WNN] performance from January...check it out!

....I have not forgotten about blogging everything else that has happened around me in Second Life lately. Chances are, I will catch up with my back-(b)log of documented activities sometime after wednesday once RL has settled down a bit.

Inhuman Resources Exhibition

2009-03-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Yes, I know you have not heard from me in ages and I always promise (esp. in the New Year of each year) that I will be back in SL but the truth is, RL is just way too busy for me these days...sigh!

However, I (including my RL self) am curating a new show at the Alternator Gallery in Kelowna called "Inhuman Resources" on April 11th, 2009.

This show includes Liz Solo from Second Front and Mez Breeze.

For Liz's show, Second Front and the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse will be adding performance enhancements and Mez's collection of metaphysical avatar selves who will be communicating with each other in Second Life, Twitter and World of Warcraft is going to be super cool!

Well, here is the official hype below...maybe I will see you there in-world? The SLurls will be announced at the last minute so stay tuned for more info as it happens!

INHUMAN RESOURCES
Featuring artists Mez Breeze & Liz Solo
Curated by Jeremy Owen Turner

Opening Reception: Friday April 11 at 8 PM SLT (SLurls to be announced)
Admission by donation - Refreshments served
Artist Liz Solo and curator Jeremy Owen Turner in attendance.

Panel discussion 7pm
Performances 8pm
Party until midnight

Workshop Sunday April 12 @2pm
A Presentation on involvement in the music world: Featuring Liz Solo and more!
Admission by donation
Two new media performance artists from Newfoundland and Australia express themselves through the most popular virtual chat-worlds, video games and social networking sites. Using Second Life, World of Warcraft and Twitter as their chosen mediums of expression, these performances are literally out of this world!

Solo explains, “The gallery exhibit features a series of installed machinima (machine generated animation) pieces and a projected synthetic environment, all created inside of the virtual world of Second Life. Via an avatar the gallery visitor will be invited to explore the virtual space and interact with it. Visitors can wander in a field of giant eggs, play with virtual instruments, care for virtual infants, experience being virtually born from an egg.”

Liz Solo aka Lizsolo Mathilde (St. John's) will perform Live Alien Home Birth during which she will call on her friends Second Front - and the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse for support and coaching.

Mez Breeze aka Netwurker Twin (Australia) will use multiple manifestations of her core identity to coordinate a post-human and trans-dimensional literary ritual only possible (so far) in virtual worlds.

Wirxli is back and on CNN!

2009-01-11T00:40:00.000-08:00

Hey there patient blog-readers...

Happy New Year, 2009!

Wirxli is back in Second Life!

I have been on an academic hiatus for a little while now and...er... oh wait, I am still in academia in RL...sigh!

Anyways, RL is still so time-consuming that I virtualy have no time to blog about all of my recent activities in SL lately but the rumours are true - I have resumed some level of in-world activity lately.

A little over 24-hours ago, for example, I had a solo performance at the ARENA Festival in Italy.

This festival features 40 artists and is curated by Roxelo Babenco and Arco Rosca (Uqbar).

It is part of a bigger festival called "Rinascimento Virtuale" ("Virtual Renaissance") that is being held at the real life Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence - Firenze. For this specific festival, Mario Gerosa is the curator.

For this performance called "WEARABLE NEWS NETWORKs (WNN)", I had the avatar audience wear some video-clothes that displayed some breaking news feeds about Gaza and then as CNN's iReporter, I interviewed a few select avatars about what their impressions/opinions were about the news content that they were currenly wearing...

Here was what the news-suit looked like...

Anyways, I performed as an embedded iReporter for CNN and here is my official news report on CNN's website...

Here is the only pic available that I personally had the time to create:

Wirxli interviews Ginevra Lancaster to see what her opinions were about the current real life conflict in Gaza City.

Here are some more documentation samples from this event for you:

1) Arco Rosca's Photos.

2) Roxelo Babenco's Photos.

3) HardwareHacker Hoch's Photos.

4) The ARENA e-Catalogue produced by the CARP Collective in Romania and Hungary.

Well, I would love to chat with you on this blog but seriously, I have way too much real life work to contend with at the moment so once again - this blog might be seriously delayed for many more days to come...sigh!

Hey, at least this post is better than no new posts at all...right? ;-)

Stay tuned for more stories about my recent activities in Second Life...

I have left Second Front!

2008-06-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of myself hanging out in a property that is acting as an unofficial tribute to the popular multiplayer video-game, (the) World of Warcraft in Second Life.

Hey there Second Front fans!

The news and rumours surrounding my recent disappearance are now official. I have decided to leave Second Front in order to focus on solo performances, smaller-scale collaborations, my RL family and academic research.

These past 2 years have been a very wild ride. It seems like yesterday when I first proposed starting a performance art group based on the Western Front Society in Vancouver.

I remember the exact day quite well.... November 21, 2006 happened to be my RL Wife's birthday and I had edited my avatar's appearance to my trademark style probably 6 hours before we celebrated her birthday over dinner. Naturally, she was the first one I asked to join Second Front. Basically, a few days after that, I asked everyone that I thought would be a good fit for the group via email solicitations and the core ensemble of 4 members had already been assembled. By about 2 weeks, we had grown to 6 and shortly after we had recruited even more high-profile Second Fronters such as Gazira Babeli. In fact, we had our first performance documented within a week of forming.

So now, change is in the air. In September, I am returning to Graduate Studies at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology. I am working towards a Masters of Interactive Arts there. This should give me the necessary excuse to further explore virtual worlds under the guise of "homework"... tee hee! ;-)

Also, I have been spending every Sunday with the Ars Virtua Guild (yes, the same group as the Contemporary Art Museum in SL) in the World of Warcraft as we have been developing my performance art series there.

So, lets just say that I have been extremely busy with all my other projects and upcoming research. You might not hear too much about Wirxli in the near future since some of my other projects involve my ALTs. I will still leave the door open though to collaborating with individuals from Second Front - I still love and respect them all and I am sure they will produce sublime (and realtime) work.

As for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, I am still unsure how often I can still commit to rehearsals since most of my free time has been on weekends and most of their rehearsals are on Tuesday afternoons. I will keep you posted with what happens there. Speaking of which, I promise to blog about my most recent AOM composition. I am still waiting for more archives to arrive before I am ready to blog that particular posting.

Ok, stay tuned for more sporadic Wirxli postings in the near future :-)

Smart Mobbed - My Life as Howard Rheingold...

2008-06-01T23:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of Wirxli (me) as Howard Rheingold the bank manager sitting at his desk in the Lynden Labs bank

Hey there fellow academic Rheingoldiggers and Smart Mobsters!

These past few weeks have been very intense and I have hardly any time to reflect on recent events. There has been a lot of change in my life lately and it might still be awhile before I come to terms with everything and post it gradually onto my blog here.

For now, I thought I would reflect on my brief and controversial life as the pioneer of the Virtual Community, Howard Rheingold.

For my final performance with Second Front, I decided to hijack Howard's avatar identity as he was one of the panelists being presented in San Francisco. Of course, I had to become "Howard" for a couple of days so I could get comfortable in my new role as Howard's evil doppelganger. To read about this performance and panel session, please go to Second Front's official blog posting about it here.

I just want to be extremely clear with you here that by no means did I intend to be the real Howard Rheingold. The whole performance was about identity theft and how one's avatar persona and trademarked personality - even if it is based on one's Real Life (RL) self - is completely at the mercy of Lynden Lab's Terms of Service.

Did you know they own the rights to use your avatar in any context that they see fit?

They can make you advertise for Second Life's corporate side or (gasp!) perhaps even force your avatar clone to appear in a Pepsi ad or something, with only your tacit consent... By tacit consent, I mean that you had briefly read the "Terms of Service Agreement" and had signed it perhaps without thinking of the consequences.

Anyway, Second Front wanted to dramatize the possible consequences of this Terms of Service and so we took many liberties with the original panelists that had their avatars willingly copied into the virtual world. Most of the panelists became thieves trying to steal more identities. In my case, I made the new co-opted Howard a shrewd bank manager who has been charged with the service of protecting Lynden-owned avatar identities. This of course, runs intentionally counter to the RL Howard's more open and friendly hopes for the potential(s) inherant in a "Virtual Community". I have twisted Howard's whole personality into that of a Lynden Labs crony who locks all avatar identities into a vault to be used and re-purposed by Lynden Labs in any manner that they wish.

Howard himself (the RL one) has a regular avatar in SL with his own office and an embedded virtual research practice. In fact, his usual avvie happened to wander into the Lynden Labs bank to find to his horror, that a stolen clone of his avvie had been virally possesed by Lynden Labs and this mutated and Wirxlified doppelganger was gradually being seduced by the Bank Secretary, of all people!(!)

It is my hope that Howard and the other panelists understand why we (Second Front) did this piece and twisted their core personalities into something much darker and shallow than who they really are in RL (and via their official SL interactions).

Here are some more pix for you...

Here is another pic of
"Howard" posing in front of the Lynden Treasury.

Things got steamy between Howard and his secretary...was this in the script? Of course, the secretary was only using "Howard" to get ahold of the key to the vault. I think this scene has been adopted by many James Bond style films in the past ;-)

Here is a close up of Wirxli/Howard and "Christiane Paul"...

So, those are some pix from that Second Front performance called "Grand Theft Avatar III - Heist City".

To get into the role of "Howard", I had to spend some time in close covert proximity to him. In addition, I understood the necessity of making at least one pilgrimage to his personal headquarters...

Here is another pic of "Howard" in his official office...

Here is yet another angle of Howard's office...For the purpose of my blog, I had decided to show you Howard's social networking maps and some portraits of the Real McCoy. I thought it was best that I also corrupt Howard's social networking processes to ensure that my approach to the new Lyndensque Virtual Community would be kept under devious lock and key.

Here was the official Purple paisley texture used for Howard's t-shirt for Second Front's GTA III performance..

Haledol Minotaure Daydreaming...

2008-04-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

When my performance with Second Front first started up, I had some minor problems locating the venue...sigh! Maybe I should return to rehab? Or, maybe I should pawn off my pink halo for some.....???? ;-)

Hey there Haledoled-up Minotaurists!

Finally, I have had a chance to reflect on my most recent performance with Second Front which took place quite some time ago...well, everything in Second Life seems like the distant past, but I digress..... Ummmm...geez, my RL self is really tired as I type this...I had better quickly summarize the photos before I fall aSLeep. If you want to know any details about this performance just go to Second Front's official blog and read all the related posts here, here and here...

Ok, here are some "exclusive" (in other words "leftover") photos from that performance session...

Here I am next to Fau Ferdinand The Minotaure during our rehearsal's rehearsal... Does this make sense? My good pal and fellow Second Fronter, Bibbe is also in this pic.

Here I am posing with an easter bunny in the padded cell with some Second Fronters Tran and Bibbe. Yes, this performance was seen as a kind of Easter celebration.

Here I am with my re-configurable holy cross next to some audience members.... Some of the audience members were trying to out-do our act with some gamey references and a token skull...

Now, I will show you some images that I was using to mass-spam the padded cell with. A swarm of unexpected replicated images are collectively called "goo". I could say magic words and conjure each "goo" image to appear. So for example, if I said "Iraq", my customized Iraqi flags would appear all over the room. Anyway, enough about the dull technicalities... Here are some close-ups of my chosen goo-images for this particular performance...

I used this image of Lucifer's symbol mainly for my performance-suit's pattern but it was also available as a potential "goo" image.

This was the closest I would come to referencing the iconography of Jesus.

This Iraqi flag was modified to suit my particular purple aesthetic. I have been inspired by Iraq lately since meeting the Iraqi SL Philosopher Sarmad Alsarmady on Facebook. This guy really wants to find a way to expose the entire Iraqi population to the wonders of Second Life...and more power to him! You could say that this flag is my personal tribute to Sarmad.

Since the Minotaure was our main theme, I just HAD to also have a customized Spanish flag at my disposal.

I actually forgot to goo this image during the performance but it was on stand-by. Yes, this is also a Wirxlified modification of an emblematic image. Does anyone remember the Labyrinth game for the C-64?

After the performance, I was able to relax for a bit by allowing myself to be interviewed on the front patio of my PR Office by Joshua Khorana (Josh Kho in RL) of the University of British Columbia (UBC)...

Stay tuned for this interview to be released in a print format sometime soon...
Also please stay tuned for April 14th, where Second Front performs our next opus, "Grand Theft Avatar 3: Heist City".

XANADRuuL Dome still in development...

2008-03-22T21:36:00.001-07:00

Here is a pic of the Orchestra's Architect Dethomas Dibou and instrument builder, Bingo Onomatopoeia overseeing the development from inside of the dome for my new composition, XANADRuuL.

Hey there Cutting-Edge Chrome-Domes!

For those who are regular readers of my blog, you were probably expecting me to post about Second Front's most recent performance already but I must say that I have like 20+ pix from that event so blogging it will take quite awhile since I spend time doing individual photo-captions and fine-tuned hyperlinks etc. etc.

For those who missed it, Second Front played a few days ago on Orange Island as part of the Dorkbot Paris event in Montmartre.

You will see the documentation on both this blog and the official Second Front blog very soon, I promise!

For now, I thought I would blog about something else that only needed a few pictures and text pre-made to post...

So, here are some more pictures about Dethomas Dibou's fabulous work on the dome that is being custom built for my upcoming composition with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse called "XANADRuuL"....

Here is a closeup of Bingo inside of the dome checking out all the poseballs to make sure they are all in order.

Here is Bingo inside the dome again...I really like the architecture on the same property next door to the dome...Is this one of Dethomas' buildings? It looks like the major commission he made for Il Giornale.

Here is Bingo standing on one of the detailed beams. The patterns almost have an Islamic feel to them. AWESOME!

Once again, we have Dethomas working hard on the dome.... On closer inspection, I am thinking that maybe the dome is now hexagonal and not pentagonal as originally planned? Hmmm...I hope it is not too late..maybe I am hallucinating the number of sides...hmmmm...

Here is an extreme detail of one of the ornamented beams.

Gazira Babeli's 2nd Solo Show - 1st in RL!

2008-03-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

Find more videos like this on Museo del Metaverso

This opening night video footage is by the Curator of the Museo del Metaverso, Roxelo Babenco. This opening was so fabulous, I wish all RL opening nights could be as surreally sublime and aesthetically pleasing as this!
Seriously, you just HAVE to check this video out! I can watch this over and over and over! This is one of the most fantastic documents I have EVER witnessed!

Here is the official exhibition poster. As you can see, it is Gazira's first show in RL. It looks like the curator Domenico Quaranta is making an official catalogue for this exhibition and I think that my Second Front colleague Man Michinaga (Patrick Lichty in RL) as well as performance art legend Alan Dojoji (Alan Sondheim in RL) . I hope I can read a copy in RL :-)

Hey there Gazophiles and Generation-Idol Idolaters!

My Second Front colleague-in-crime Gazira Babeli just had a legendary retrospective show in both Odyssey Island and in RL at the Fabio Paris Gallery in Italy.

Here is the official press release for this show:

OPENING
Saturday, March 15th 2008

'Real Life'
fabioparis artgallery, 6 PM
Catalog curated by Domenico Quaranta

'Second Life' - Locusolus 9 AM SLT

Gazira Babeli is an artist who lives and works in the virtual world of Second Life, where she was born on 31 March 2006. Like all inhabitants of virtual worlds she is an identity construction known as an avatar, but unlike them, she does not acknowledge the presence of a “human” controlling her. In this short space of time she has earned attention and respect with her provocative performances which explore the issues of the body, space and identity in virtual worlds. Babeli acts like a virus, unleashing earthquakes and showers of icons extrapolated from pop culture, or spreading epidemics which deform the bodies of other residents of Second Life. “Gaz” has become a multivalent term, and a household name in her virtual world. The aura of mystery that surrounds her has engendered a kind of legend, which quickly moved beyond the confines of Second Life.

Gazira Babeli is a “virtual” artist, but her work is “real”. She explores the body, space, identity. She compares her oeuvre with art history. She talks about us. She is closer than we think, with our multiple identities, our way of representing ourselves, our lives in front of the screen. To those who ask her if there is a point in living in a virtual world, she mockingly responds: “What about you? How’s life in Microsoft Office?”. Seen in this light her work acquires meaning and efficacy even outside the world which generated it, as her numerous appearances in shows and festivals demonstrates. Now, in this solo exhibition at the Fabio Paris Art Gallery, the artist presents a selection of works that reflect the two fundamental poles of her oeuvre: her world and her identity as a virtual artist. Babeli lives in a simulated world, a realistic, 3D universe generated by castles of computing code, yet “inhabited” and experienced on a daily basis by millions of people. Her work explores the conventions and contradictions of this world, addressing concepts like time, space and the body by simply manipulating language. Her work is ‘performance’ in the purest sense of the term: language which generates action. Bodies change shape and come alive; giant towers collapse and then rise from their ashes once more; mysterious forces and objects take possession of us. But Babeli’s main work is Gazira herself, and the knowing manipulation of her legend, as shown in the video triptych Saint Gaz' Stylite and the movie Gaz' of the Desert (March 2007), the first high definition film entirely shot in a virtual world. Babeli mixes hagiography and slapstick, surrealism and country music, to tell the story of her life behind the screen, midway between isolation and sociality, asceticism and temptation.

Gazira Babeli has taken part in festivals and exhibitions in Italy (Peam 2006 - The Diamond, Pescara 2006; V07, Venice) and abroad (Deaf 2007, Rotterdam 2007); and with the collective Second Front she took part in Performa 07 (New York). A year from her birth, the retrospective Gazira Babeli: [Collateral Damage] (10 April - 31 May 2007), put on in Second Life in a museum-sized venue, represented a definitive confirmation. In the space of two months the show attracted more than one thousand visitors. Her work has also elicited the attention of publications like El Pais, La Stampa, Liberazione, Exibart, Der Spiegel and Kunstzeitung. Gazira Babeli is her first solo exhibition in the “real” world.
http://gazirababeli.com

The exhibition will also see the publication of a book, Gazira Babeli (edited by Domenico Quaranta, with essays by Mario Gerosa, Patrick Lichty and Alan Sondheim).

And.... Here is the other press release for the show...

*GAZIRA BABELI*

Saturday, march 15, 18.00 pm

Fabio Paris Art Gallery
via Alessandro Monti 13 - 25121 Brescia
tel. 030 3756139 - Skype: fabioparisbs
www.fabioparisartgallery.com
From march 15, to april 30
15.00-19.00 pm everyday except holidays

Second Life, Locusolus simulator 9 AM SLT
Party<->Crasher<->Party
Second (Real) Audience vs. Real (Second) Audience
Anti-Invitation (No Invitation Needed)
Crash the party! Crash your car! Crash the Sim!
All Live!
Eat! Drink! Barf! Love! Hate! Sleep! Dance!
Do Art! Think! Fight!

Ok, I know you really only wanted to check out this blog to look at the photos from the opening day/night to see if your avatar appeared in one of the pix...it is all about "see and be seen" anyways so....here you go...lets hope/pray, you were visible enough to blogged about at Gaz's show...

Worship the Golden Gaz! Here I am with Gaz impersonator, Violette LeShelle. I must say though that she was not the only impersonator that evening. Not to be outdone at the opening, I realized that I also had to fit in to some degree and at least wear an official Gaz hat for solidarity ;-) I think the official golden Gaz bust set the tone for the whole evening and for her place in virtual history. Overall, I would say that Gaz has reached the point of absolute deification which is perfectly fine in my books since Second Front is also along for the ride ;-)

This is the closest I was able to get with showing the entire audience that managed to attend Gaz's show at its peak. Gaz herself guestimated that about 65 people were stuffed into this Black Cube Aquarium. Well, at least it was white inside enough for all the conversative art critics...heheheheheheh ;-) I am glad that Olga took pictures of the gallery cube itself because I had no idea what kind of space I was hanging out in...I was so strung out from the art strung onto the walls to notice...WHOA!

This pic shows the a special camera angle that I took that illustates the intermediary space between gallery-space and ummmmmm.... "art"-space....I mean, life is art and art is life especially in Second Life, right? SIGH! Well, on Locusolus the whole area is self-consciously arts-infested and that is a good thing, right? On another note, I hope you like the coloured orbs that people were playing with inside the gallery. All I had to bring to this event was my token Toyota Scion...ooops! I did not mean to make a product placement...if only I could invoice Toyota for this...SIGH! Yes it is true that my avatar was nodding off throughout the exhibition. This had nothing to do with my interest in the show, for the record. In fact, it even had nothing whatsoever to do with drug use (honest)!!! Rather, my RL duties happened to siphon off my attention span at the same time the peak of this opening occurred... TRIPLE SIGH!
Oh, I should also mention that another Second Front colleague was in attendance and this was none other than Bibbe Oh...Yaaay!

Here is a side view of the gallery crowd and (yes, of course) my Scion. Also featured in this gratuitious group photo is the curator Domenico Quaranta's new look and Olga's own Gaz impersonation.

Here are some great examples of Gaz's trademark deformed avatars that Second Front used for the Spawn of the Surreal Performance a year ago. I loved the highly detailed pictures that Gaz had produced. The detail was so high, we could just about see our own reflections and Great Art, of course is entirely based on the degree to which we can gaze at our own glamourous reflections, right? I also loved the gold SLeaf detailing on Gaz's bust statue... I guess Gaz has truly entered the lapdance of luxury this time and has rezzed at least one brass ring...woo hooo! I am truly happy for her as everyone knows in SL, wealth = total happiness :-)

Here is a picture of myself with Man Michinaga who is also a colleague with me in Second Front. Man is in his/her trademark incarnation of Ciccolina. Behind us, you can see more reflective paintings that Gaz had made. I love the Goth poses! The whole show was truly amazing...I was in awe of all of the images and this is coming from someone who usually only cares about Performance Art.

Here I am with a deformed incarnation of Odyssey's curator, Sugar Seville as well as another Second Front colleague Fau Ferdinand who sported her own golden avvie. Also included in this scene is a piece of holographic sirloin steak...well, it is a hologram of some kind of meat offering...hmmmm.... Maybe it was the meat-confusion or perhaps the proliferation of biohazard signs but Sugar Seville seemed to remark, "I cant see anything with this mega prim twirling around".

Once again, we have a richly detailed (but necessarily gilded) group portrait with the understated and unrezzed Gazira Babeli herself with our favourite videographer nearby - Evo Szuyuan.

Congrats to Gaz on yet another mindblowing and overflowing retrospective show!

Please stay tuned for Second Front's next performance at Dorkbot Paris this friday at 12:30 PM SLT....

More developments for XANADRuuL...

2008-03-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

From Left-Right: Liz Solo, Wirxli Flimflam (me), Fernsing Llewellyn and Bingo Onomatopoeia. This pic shows you Saturday's Choir sessional and receiver HUD test for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. All these tests and building sessions will be part of the Premiere on May 10th of my 3rd Orchestral Opus, XANADRuuL... In this pic, you can see a halo over my head. This halo is part of the Reciever HUD interface designed by the Orchestra's in-house instrument builder, Bingo Onomatopoeia. Since this session, Bingo has also developed a similar halo HUD for the angelic choir...Woooo Hooo! I cannot wait to see this! On another note, I took this pic right after the Curator, Humming Pera left....ooops! Sigh!

Greetings XANADRuuLERS!

Many of you probably thought tonight's blog posting was going to be about Gazira Babeli's newest Solo Show on Odyssey Island but that posting is still under development as I have a few pictures to prepare before posting. So, I thought I would post a "quickie" update for you first...

In addition to the above pic where you can see that Bingo has been working hard on developing the Orchestral performance HUDs, our Architect Dethomas Dibou has been working equally as hard building the dome where the Orchestra will premiere my newest Magnum Opus, XANADRuuL....

Check out and see how the dome looks so far....

Here is the most recent assembly of the dome that the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's Architect Dethomas Dibou is building for my newest composition, XANADRuuL If you look carefully, you can see Dethomas working inside the dome.

This picture shows the underlying purple poseball "flying" buttress structure underneath the pentagonal (and occasionally hexagonal) walls that will eventually wrap around this dynamic exoskeleton when it is time for the Orchestra's Dress Rehearsals. Once again, you can see Dethomas hovering inside the dome. Unlike Architects working around the clock in RL, Dethomas can assemble the entire Modernist structure by himself in realtime.

This pic shows Dethomas' first attempts at building the dome. Here was what he emailed me when sent me this very first pic...

hi jeremy
i started building your dome
its very difficult
but i will do my best
:-)
colors and more we can made later
first i need the shape
nice day

detlef

It reads kinda like a Haiku, doesn't it? :-D

XANADRuuL's First Rehearsals...

2008-03-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

Here is my official promo-photo for that May 10th Voice++ concert at Open Space gallery in Victoria. I will not actually be using these speakers but I thought I would look good next to them in the promo photo since I want to at least portray the same glamourous aura of Modern Genius that Karlheinz Stockhausen himself possessed....

...I am composing an elegy for him, since he died just last year...

Hey there Karlheinz 57s, Serial(ist) Killers, Iron Kürtens and choir-caseloads of angelic audiophiles!

I may as well post all the early archives of my first reheasals for my new Stockhausen tribute composition now since it is starting to roll into full swing dress-rehearsal mode very soon and this primitive process will soon be forgotten lest I archive it straight away!

For this Voice ++ concert on May 10th (a Saturday), I will be premiering my 3rd major opus called "XANADRuuL" and is dedicated entirely to the immortal memory of our favourite alien ambassador, Karlheinz Stockhausen (yes, I like to namedrop him as much as possible). For all those who are not yet in the know about Stockhausen and his work, my advice is to not bother trying to understand what he was all about since he was from another star-system anyway... Lets just say that mere Earthly humanoids with some minor exceptions never quite understood him nor his musical output. Since I am also an alien (and a SLemale), I fully understand where he is coming from and I actually like some of his compositions (especially Kontakte, for example).

Anyways, I am not sure what Stockhausen's ghost will think about my tribute from beyond the grave but regardless of his opinion, I am very excited about this gig because I am being double billed with an eqaully important Modernist Genius Composer (MGC is the acronym if you are ever in an office administration job) named Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes in SL). This is her very first SL composition for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, and is an adaptation of a composition she wrote for Trombones and Oscillator in 1999 called "The Heart of Tones (THoT)". Well, you will hear more about Oliveros' composition very shortly since I will also be hyping that one to death but in the meantime, I already have prepared some hype for you about my newest large-scale music composition to date:

XANADRuuL = Stockhausen's Pleasuredome 4 Sirius Business" (2007/2008)
Composed by Wirxli Flimflam aka. Jeremy Owen Turner.

XANADRuuL is a Second Life composition in 3 sections created for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. One can see this composition as an official elegy/tribute to the Modernist music pioneer, Karlheinz Stockhausen. XANADRuuL was created from samples that were solely derived from the Composer's (Wirxli's) own digitally manipulated voice. This composition was inspired by Stockhausen's claim of being an alien from Sirius and so the 3 sections of this composition correspond to Sirius A, B and C stars. In addition, there are also many references to Xanadu (including the movie with Olivia Newton John). The Opening Ceremonies take place on Sirius A where angels sing along with the selected voice samples from heavenly heights on the ceiling of a pentagonal geodesic dome and also on Sirius B where meandering avatars vainly attempt to communicate with these alien angelic muses using only pre-recorded samples. Sirius C is a "meta-composition" and is perfomed by the public throughout Second Life.

Anyways, I hope this hype will make the program notes for this RL Voice Festival.

In the meantime, check out these photos from some of the earliest days of performing XANADRuuL (including earlier today)...

This is the only pic I have that was taken earlier this morning and was the Orchestra's very first "full ensemble" rehearsal...This is also the first rehearsal to take place on a Saturday in order to accomodate the North American members of the Orchestra. I hope there will at least be a couple more of these saturday rehearsals before the big day on May 10th. For this cross-continental breakfast, you will see that I had to use a temporary rehearsal dome while waiting for the official one to be built by the Orchestra's Architect, Dethomas Dibou. Considering I have full VIP access as a SLebrity, I managed to score the Avastar's Star Lounge Dome which was good enough since it came with a swimming pool and some couches. Since the swimming pool was about the same size as the performance area I had in mind for the HUD performers, I had them walk around waist deep in that pool while the angelic choir had to compromise a little bit by singing beside the pool rather than being suspended from the dome's ceiling. Once the official dome has been built, the angelic choir should be able to hover from the dome's celing without any hassle or throbbing back pain. I am glad this was not a dress rehearsal, because everyone forgot to wear white (including me) and one of the choir members named Fernsing Llewellyn seemed more comfortable singing in the pool than keeping her critical (and divine) distance... sigh! Oh, before I forget, the HUD was designed once again by Bingo Onomatopoeia. You can see the HUD interface on the screen. The HUD has 23 differently coloured pentagonal buttons which makes perfect sense since the official dome will also be pentagonal. Bingo is also working on the halos for the HUD performers but I will blog about that feature when the performers have tested it out during the next rehearsal...

This slightly earlier picture shows the very first time that I managed to score the Avastar's Star Lounge dome. In this case, just the two of us were able to rehearse. Humming (the curator) is playing the part of the singing angel whereas I was playing the Devil...er...I mean the HUD performer ;-) Humming tried to approximate the angelic suspension by hovering near the ceiling. I recommended that until we get proper places for the angelic choirmembers to be suspended from, they might have to resort to sitting on the couches during our rehearsals.... OH, THE HARDSHIP OF A STRUGGLING SLEBRITY MUSICIAN!!!! ;-)

A little later that evening, my colleague in Second Front, Bibbe Oh popped by the Star Lounge to hang out for a bit. I really like her Terrorist T-Shirt...She told me it is part of an art-series she is working on...VERY KEWL! I forgot to mention that in that large-scale rehearsal shown above, other co-performers in Second Front are also moonlighting as Orchestra performers. Liz Solo is going to be singer, Tran Spire offered to be the camera-avatar and Fau Ferdinand was also there for (im)moral support :-D

This pic was taken quite some time ago...Like, maybe a month ago (gasp!). SL Historians, please take note that one month ago does not qualify as being Pre-History, ok?? Anyways, we were on top of a gallery on Odyssey Island. The whole gang included Weave Noyes and Fernsing Llewellyn. As you can see from the text, we were talking about Pauline's piece but we also had a choir pre-sectional rehearsal meet'n'greet for XANADRuuL. For example, this was the first time, I had actually met Fernsing and Weave for the first time in the SLesh.

Ok, this is probably the very first pic relating directly to XANADRuuL in any way. This pic is so old, it was taken sometime in the Winter (it is Spring now, right? So, it is old now, right?). This pic was also taken on Odyssey Island and illustrated the very first choir tests for XANADRuuL. Humming was even dressed up for the occasion but I think she forgot that it was no longer Remembrance Day as her Poppy Dress looked slightly out of context...heheheheh... Just kidding, Humming! Anyways, Aurel Miles was testing her voice with us and her GF Yvette Tzara was akso hanging out...it was a very nice time!

Anyways, the piece is coming along just...er... Swimmingly...and unless I get some ghostly advice from Stockhausen before the next Saturday rehearsal (might be next week), things should go along the same linear path that I had originally put into place...phew! Please scroll down for some more blogging (including more composer gossip)...

En Route to Upgrade Paris...

2008-02-16T23:01:00.000-08:00

It did not take me long to get dressed for the occasion: Dr. Seuss hat, Senegalese flag-abstraction jacket and French flag-abstraction pants....I was good to go and was looking forward to meeting up with some other Second Front-ers, the curators and Gawlab from Dakar (Senegal) who were giving an artist talk before us.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...that Banana Dacquiri was yummy! I felt like drinking one at my PR Office a few minutes before meeting the rest of the Second Front crew for our artist talk at Upgrade Paris. I needed a stiff drink as I wanted to feel more relaxed and tropical - Senegal is a pleasant and well-weathered French colony, right? ;-)

But, all was not as it seemed as I found out a little bit later...

To read more about today's artist talk, please go to the Second Front blog posting about it here....

Second Wall-ker and the AOM on ZKM Island...

2008-02-16T01:34:00.000-08:00

Here I am wearing my wall in front of my PR office. Yes, that is a portrait of Phil Spector that I have decided to hang on my wall...Separated at birth, you ask? Yes, quite possibly so :-)

Hey there Wirxli loving Wallflowers, Bloated Berliners and ZKM-o-philes!

Phew! What a week! Well, what a LAST week, that is! Last week, I had 2 gigs on one day. The pic above gives you a sneak peek into my new performance with Second Front called "Second Wall-ker Center - Dancing About Architecture"....Please check out our official blog and read all about it here. Basically, it was hosted by the Director's Lounge in Berlin and the ZKM as part of the Berlinale festival.

Normally, I would summarize what happened on this blog too but I am just too SLeepy to do any more writing...I have literally just posted the Second Front blog posting a few minutes ago... I now have a full time office job in RL and so I only have weekends to practice art in SL these days. Geez, I only have like 16 hours from now before I have to appear again for Upgrade Paris....yikes!

I have barely recovered from my Valentine's Day festivities and already it is back to virtual work....sigh!

Ok, so before Second Front's performance, I also performed yet again with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse and yes, we performed the classics as usual but this time we performed on the exciting and high-profile ZKM Island...here are a couple of pix from this event...

AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE ON ZKM ISLAND...

Here we all are on a packed oil rig playing Miulew Takahe's classic composition, Rue Blanche.

Here is a close-up of me playing Takahe's other classic called Fragula inside a special Tron-inspired mountain located on ZKM Island. We would play Fragula inside the mountain and we would suddently leap outside the box...er...mountain...er...grid...er...whatever...ummm...I think I need to SLeep in RL now....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

p.s. I did not take a pic of Bingo Onomatopoeia's WNK performance because the space was so laggy at the time, I could barely even hear my own sounds in realtime let alone take any photos without crashing the world...sigh!

Happy Belated New Year!

2008-02-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

As I am still technically in rehab, I am not really allowed to indulge in the real "bubbly". To celebrate Belated New Years Day, I have decided to spend some time inside a bubble instead...In this case, it is the sonically enhanced bubble vehicle belonging to my Orchestral colleague, Goodwind Seiling.

Hey there Post-Party Poopers, Belated Bubbles and Rehab Addicts!

HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR!

Yaaay! It is Feb 1st and I am exactly one month behind schedule! I guess this would officially make it a Belated New Year worth celebrating, eh?

Sadly, the last time I posted on my blog was technically last year...Is anyone counting? SIGH!

The end of 2007 was a major burn-out for me because of all the SL Coke I was doing...it kinda got to my head and I am sure the entire Second Front group also went a little snowblind since our most recent debaucherous fiasco in Miami was a dayglo green blizzard out of nowhere!

Anyway, I have been spending the first part of this year in Rehab which is probably a good thing since I have an upcoming full time job in RL. This job will be 9-5 PM from Monday-Friday so I probably will not be active in SL nor on my blog until the weekends....

However, I have not totally faded from the scene. I consider 2008 to be the year of being "Born Again" although in my case, that does not really mean all that much...heheheheh....

I still have some life left in me in the form of:

1) A top-secret performance with Blued Food at an undisclosed location (I cannot show you the rehearsal documentation until later).

2) Feb 10th - Upcoming Second Front and Avatar Orchestra Metaverse performances curated by Olga Wunderlich will be taking place on the ZKM Island that is part of the Director's Lounge in Berlin.

3) Feb 16th - A talk with Second Front following a bunch of Senegalese artists and theorists as part of Upgrade Paris. This event will be organized by Toto Donat.

4) May 10th - My new composition called "XANADRuuL: Stockhausen's Pleasuredome 4 Sirius Business" (2008) will be premiered at the Open Space's Voice festival. This 3rd musical opus of mine will be performed by the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse accompanied by additional choir members and will be curated by Humming Pera (Tina Pearson).

5) A whole slew of top-secret collaborations in SL and the World of Warcraft which I am not at liberty to disclose yet.

Well, enough about the future...here are some more photos from the blast from the slightly earlier past...well, earlier today anyway... All these photos were taken from my Orchestral colleague Goodwind Seiling's (Sachiko Hayashi's) installation at the HUMlab in Sweden... Basically, you enter a floating bubble vehicle and ram into the various spokes inside the geodesic dome...the experience is kinda like musical bumper cars except one might guess that Eno was the engineering guide rather than some demented fair-ride operator.

Ok..here they are...

Here is a zoomed-out pic showing the entire geodesic dome... If you look closer, you can see me inside the dome (and inside a bubble as well)...It seems that the "dome" is a common architectural theme for Orchestra members these days since I will also be using a custom geodesic dome for my upcoming Stockhausen tribute piece for mixed Orchestra and Choir called "XANADRuuL: Stockhausen's Pleasuredome 4 Sirius Business".

Here is proof that I actually attended Goodwind Seiling's show at the HUMlab. Although this was the first image I documented, I am posting it as if it was a closing image as I am treating it like end-credits....hee hee!

My Second Second Snow Crash with Second Front...

2007-12-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

Here I am after snorting probably L$300 of coke which was probably most if not all of our budget from Zones Contemporary Artfair in Miami that was designated for that night's Second Front performance, now that I think about it. I had what was probably the virtual equivalent of mild and temporary form of pixellated heart failure. Fortunately, I could wade in the hot tub to revive myself if I wanted to or maybe just snort back some more lines to get myself back on track. Hmmm... Maybe I will have to consult Eno's Oblique Strategies book one more time as it seems to contain many LINES of wisdom... I must have left the snow tray just at the moment the book chimed in with the words, "you seriously need to check into rehab!" Sigh!

Hey there...uh.....SNORT!....uh....Hey....SNIFF!

Phew! I am stil recovering from my performance with Second Front called "Art Basel Miami Vice" that was part of the Zonal Contemporary Artfair in Miami! This show was also part of the TELECULTURE exhibition sponsored via Pace Gallery and many others...

Well, this posting is really only meant to be a pointer to check out the official blog posting at the Second Front blog.

Before I either:
1) Collapse in my tracks...
...or...
2) Call my dealer ASAP...

I should at least show you some more exclusive and scandalous photos from that event before I do either (and/or) some (or all) of the above...

Here I am doing some more lines of coke on the upstairs roof-top patio of our Snow Crash pad in Miami (Locusolus in SL). It at this point that my limo driver Blued Food (the bald dude in this pic) joined me to receive the "payment" for his limo driving services...all we had left to pay him was usage of some of the cocaine itself...sigh!

Here I am doing more lines of coke while heeding the equally coked-out advice of Oblique Strategies. I mean, this deck of cards must seriously be high on its own lines because with each snort that I made, its wisdom was becoming gradually less contextually related to the act of snorting. By the time this pic was taken, the book no longer focused on the task at hand but lazily reclined and spouted what it knew about best - ambient music...sigh! I think it was starting to believe its own zen-fortified ego.

As mentioned in the Second Front blog posting about this event, Blued did a great job of hovering the limo Blade-Runner style up to the rooftop patio of our villa. I just figured I should post an extra pic of it on my blog since I had taken a pic of this from a slightly different angle.

This pic was taken in the orgy room where we temporarily dogpiled onto the coke-tray while waiting for more to rez. This was when things kinda got outta hand (understatement of the month). Olga Wunderlich's question as to whether or not we were doing a performance is actually a very good one - Second Front will wait to see whether or not the critics considered this winter snowfall excessfest to be an innovative form of Performance Art or perhaps even a Social Sculpture Installation or my personal favourite, a Happening...Well, at any rate, the event was indeed "happening" while it lasted... Maybe it is time I check into rehab now that the party of 2007 has come to close...Oh wait, there may be more lines ready for me at some New Years party in SL....hmmmm....SNIFF! SNORT!

My first Second SnowCrash...

2007-12-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

This pic was taken on a nice corner of Sugar Mountain (Odyssey Island) just as the interview with Sunnie Beaumont from Krystal Epic was about to start...It seemed contemplative to begin with but I knew that Fau Ferdinand would be arriving shortly with the chance that she might also bring along some lines of snow...things can only go up/down-hill from there, right?

Hey there Snow FLakes, coke fiendz, powder people and SLutbunny SLopecones!

I admit that this blog posting is a couple of days old which in Second Life Time (SLT) makes it seem like I wrote this sometime in the 1980s ;-)

The title of this posting is a tribute to the famous in-world Italian photographer, Marco Manray who has a website called My First Second Life. He was at Second Front's performance today in Miami but I should save the details of what actually happened for my next blog posting...

In the meantime, here is a little recap as to what happened directly after the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's landmark concert at Wien Modern in Vienna...

Sunnie Beaumont (the reporter from Krystal Epic) requested an interview with both myself and my colleague Fau Ferdinand since we were both nominated for being the "Best Performing Artists in Second Life". Originally, she wanted to interview us on seperate occasions but since Fau offered to bring along some of her new supply of nose candy, I just HAD to be interviewed simultaneously with Fau :-)

Here are some more photos....

Sunnie did not realize that her next interviewee that was also nominated for the Best Performing Artist was also in Second Front with me...I quickly made that point clear to her as I prefer to be interviewed alongside one of my colleagues and great friends...and besides, she confirmed that some powder was on its way to sugar-coat this little side of the mountaintop...yaaay!

Sure enough, Fau delivered on her promise of supplying us with some party treats and next thing you know, my fragile ego was off the hook and my nimble body was floored flat! And to think that moments ago, I was performing with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at a civil concert at Wien Modern in Vienna! This was starting to feel more like a backstage event for a rock (emphasis on "rock") concert.... The question from Sunnie was "how do you create" but I think the real answer on my mind was "how many lines can I have for free from Fau before I have to buy some more for myself?" Admittedly, my mind (and nose) was no longer focused on the interview questions...sorry about that, Sunnie! SNIFF! SNORT!

Here is a close-up of one of the rare moments where I actually looked away from the cocaine tray to try and focus on the interview questions... Yes, I was pathetic, I know but what could I do? I could not resist the offer! Isn't this how interviews usually go right after a grueling academic concert?

I left some of the chat-window open for you to read the content of the interview...I had no idea how I was able to appear coherant throughout the interview....When this pic was taken, I was starting to have a very serious snow crash. Fau was very civil, she let me have most of her coke....now THAT is serious willpower! :-)

I think Sunnie's quote here was pretty much right on target. By the time that another Second Front colleague Man Michinaga arrived for some lines, I think I had gotten a little...er... over-passionate ;-) So first off, I apologize to my colleagues for getting a little out of hand and now that I am sober enough to blog about this event, I should also add for the record that I do not ALWAYS think that I am best SL Performing Artist to have ever existed! ;-)

Anyways, that particular Snow Crash had gotten me well-primed and pumped for Second Front's Miami Vice performance that happened for the Teleculture show at the Zonal Contemporary Artfair in Miami (RL) earlier today. All I remember at the moment was that it was also projected at the Atlantic Basin Project launch in St. Johns, Newfoundland. When I finally come down from that blurry party blizzard (probably a only few seconds from now...sigh!) I will recollect my best memories from it and blog it in the next posting. :-)

STAY TUNED...

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at Wien Modern!

2007-12-04T02:05:00.000-08:00

Hey there Graphic Scorekeepers, Electronic Conductors and Wagnerian Wienerphiles!

Yes! Finally, the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse have played perhaps their highest profile blockbuster show in RL so far by scoring a gig (pardon the pun) at none other than the ultimate showcase for all those "Modernist" yet still "Contemporary Classical" composers, Wien Modern. I am sure you know that Vienna is musically speaking, the cultural capital of the Western World (not to be confused with merely the Westcoast World). So to be a historical part of this city's most important contemporary music festival is sure a treat...it even beats Darmstadt!

The Orchestra's founder, Maximillian Nakamura was there in Vienna in RL to ensure that everything went along smoothly and on time. Thanks Max! :-)

Here is the official history and mandate of the festival that occurs throughout various cultured sites in Vienna:

"Following an initiative of Claudio Abbado, since 1988 international composers, artists, interpreters and ensembles have been invited to present the wide variety and artistic creativity in the world of sound. Wien Modern is a festival of contemporary music - and also provides a platform for Modern Dance, new visuals, texts and film.

Since 1988 international composers, artists, interpreters and ensembles have been invited here so that all the different artistic facets connected to the world of sound can be experienced. Wien Modern is a festival of contemporary music - and also provides a platform for Modern Dance, new visuals, texts and film."

Oooops! I noticed that Wien Modern quoted itself at least once in that body of official text...oh well, more excuses for me to place some hyperlinks in there but maybe they should rename themselves, Wien Postmodern? ;-)

Anyway, instead of an overture, the Orchestra played full-length versions of 4 original compositions (well 5 if you include the Birthday Encore..ummm..I guess that does not qualify as "original"...does it?). Two of the 4 compositions were World (both SL and RL) Premieres! Here is a quick summary of all them in chronological order...

I - MIULEW TAKAHE - FRAGULA...

Photo by Evo Szuyuan.Just have a look at the pattern on the floor! Wow! Just looking at that pattern reminds me of being at Wien Modern!

Takahe's composition is part of the AOM's standard repetoire and is still extremely fun to play. For this performance, we interacted with Second Front co-member Gazira Babeli's installation called Come Together. After sticking together, we branched out across Virtual Haidplatz like pollen snagged by bees strung out on Viagara!

It really was an epic and sublime sight to see and unless there is a forthcoming video and audio document of it...well...I guess you just HAD to have been there ;-)

II - MAXIMILLIAN NAKAMURA - URSONATA...

Click here to listen to the live audio recording of Ursonata.

The composer Maximillian had two very special HUD interfaces designed. The stripey horizontal bar on the bottom of the screen allowed me to change the fricative sound effects that was triggered by my gun. The tiny square buttons on the right of the screen corresponded to different fricative syllables and drone samples that I could also improvise with.

As I mentioned earlier, Maxi (not to be confused with Maxxo) is the founder of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. Without him, we are nothing ;-) Maxi (as his alter-ego Shintaro Miyazaki) lives in Berlin in RL these days so fortunately he was local enough to check out the Wien Modern performance first hand. He was even able to share a coffee break or two with Wien Modern's curator, Berno Odo Polzer. I think it was Berno himself who invited the Orchestra to play. He was also the one who mentioned that the Production Coordinator named Barbara Lebitsch was having her birthday so Maxi and Berno planned a special surprise birthday encore...well, more on that later but lets focus for now on Maxi's 2nd AOM composition and its World(s) premiere.

This piece Ursonata is both an ode to Kurt Schwitter's classic Merz era equivalent to slam poetry and Gazira Babeli's installation of the same name which Second Front (my other group) used for our performance of The Gate at iMAL in Brussels a couple of months ago. Hmmm...now that I think of it, Maxi also used Gaz's mutation script which was used in Second Front's Spawn of the Surreal performance that took place almost a year ago...wow! I guess I was serious when I said that the festival should have really been called Wien Postmodern!

At any rate, it was a very fun piece and it reminds me of the days in RL when I was a music composition student at Uvic. My teacher at the time, Christopher Butterfield is quite well known around the globe for his performance of Ursonate ("Ursonata" in English).

III - WIRXLI FLIMFLAM - RIESENRAD...

Photo by Evo Szuyuan.Here is an overture...er..overview of the ferris wheel.

Click here to listen to the live audio recording of Riesenrad.

Ok, my own composition also had a World(s) Premiere at Wien Modern. I have already blogged about it in the post below this one so you may as well just go there. To summarize, it was a Maximinimalist (cross between Maximalist and Minimalist) ode to all the classic and modern Vienna-based composers and is probably currently getting derided by the critics as being more Fantasia than Fantasia.

Speaking of Vienna-based composers, I sure wish our Orchestral colleague Gumnosphistai Nurmi had his own composition called "Avatars Brew" ready because he certainly has had direct experience with channeling the Greatest Composer Ever To Live in Vienna (well, until Falco).

IV - BINGO ONOMATOPOEIA - WEE NO KRESH (WNK)...

Click here to listen to the live audio recording of Wee No Kresh.

Photo by Digital Randt.

It was Bingo who designed all the custom instruments and HUD interfaces for the Orchestra and it was also Bingo who recorded each composition in realtime while performing, coordinating, giving tech support and yes, even showcasing his own composition.... ALL HAIL TO BINGO!

Bingo's piece WNK is also a classic repetoire piece like Miulew's (Takahe's) Fragula.

Bingo's composition is unique in that it is the only one that you can DANCE to.

Hmmmm...did I mention Wien Postmodern a bit earlier on? ;-) Maybe it is time for a parallel festival.

My buddy Digital Randt (who is also an instrument interface designer) took some kewl photos so I figured I had better at least show another one he took of WNK....

Photo by Digital Randt.

V- HUMMING PERRA AND THE AOM - FRAGGY BIRTHDAY CELLO CONCERTO Op. 1 "Barbara"...

Click here to listen to the live audio recording of the Birthday Concerto.

Click here to download and watch the video of this Birthday Surprise in Vienna (RL).

Well, Humming Perra did an awesome job playing Happy Birthday on the laggy Hypercello designed by Robbie Dingo (not to be confused with Bingo). As a Modern form of accompaniment, Miulew conducted the Orchestra players and instructed us to improvise using the gear that Bingo designed for Fragula. All in all, it was a great time where the red wine was flowing the snow was blowing...er....maybe I should save all this talk about the snow blowing that occured during an backstage interview with me for the next blog... SNIFF! SNORT!

Riesenrad Premiered at Wien Modern in Vienna!

2007-12-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

Videography and editing by Evo Szuyuan.
This video is an overture featuring some highlights from my brand new composition for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse called "Riesenrad" that was premiered on November 24th, 2007 at the Wien Modern Festival in Vienna in Real Life (RL). If you cannot see this embedded video, click here. Please click here for the Youtube version.

If you wish to hear the full audio recording of Riesenrad, Bingo Onomatopoeia recorded the whole thing on his Transponderfish website.

Hey there Classical Canon-ites, Sirius Stock(hausen)holders and Turkish Delights,

PHEW! I have finally blogged this posting all about my second Orchestral composition "Riesenrad" that was premiered last week at Wien Modern (Philiale im Gartenbaukino) in Vienna (RL) and also at Virtual Haidplatz on Odyssey Island (SL).

In this posting, I have tried to compile all the relevant information about my most recent composition since SLippery SLope (also ca. 2007) and so you might see some updates to this posting in the next few days since I want to make sure that my full intention as a composer has been expressed and articulated properly to you (yes "you", the blog reader).

Hopefully in a few days, I will have recovered enough energy to continue my blog about the Orchestra's concert at Wien Modern since there were three other compositions (and one other Premiere) on display at this historic event.

So for now, let me just post the official documents and some of my most candid thoughts that both inspired the composition as well as help bring it from the realm of the virtual into the real...er...back into the "virtual" again...or.... maybe it is back in the realm of the "real"? SIGH! HELP!!!!

I almost fell into a philosophical black hole there so enough of that, lets focus on my official programme notes for Riesenrad....

OFFICIAL PROGRAMME NOTES FOR WIEN MODERN:

RIESENRAD - Wirxli Flimflam (Jeremy Owen Turner - Vancouver, Canada),
2007

Subtitle: An abstract musical ferris wheel Gesamtkunstwerk for
Modernist and Classicist Avatars.

Composer/Conductor - Wirxli Flimflam.

Modernist HUD Interface Designer - Bingo Onomatopoeia (Andreas Müller
- Regensburg, Germany)

Set Designer and Architect - DeThomas Dibou (Detlef Thomas -
Regensburg, Germany)

Performers - Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (Global)

This timbrally maximalist composition is an homage to all the
composers throughout history that have either lived, worked or
premiered any of their own compositions in Vienna.

Structurally speaking, this composition can be seen as a hyper-
modernist and mechanistic "proof-of-concept" rather than a Romantic
style composition with a clearly defined programmatic narrative with a
Schenkarian tonal resolution hierarchy.

The "real" Riesenrad is actually Vienna's largest family-sized Ferris
Wheel and a familiar tourist attraction. The Riesenrad (German for
"Giant Ferris Wheel") was built with Teutonic and Turkish themes for
the amusement of the local royal family of the time. The original
wheel was erected in 1897 to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's Golden
Jubilee. The designer was an Englishman, Walter Bassett.

Since the composer in real life (Jeremy O. Turner) happens to be of
direct English ancestry and is one who worships the Germanic Classical
Music Tradition, the Riesenrad seems like an ideal choice for a
musical object. Although the original Riesenrad was equipped with 30
plus-sized cabins, the Riesenrad in Second Life only has 12 cabins in
order to mirror and honour Vienna's glorious dodecaphonic dynasty (ie.
Schoenberg and Webern) that will most certainly ensure the supremacy of
Germanic music for another 1,000 days.

The Orchestra repesents the (virtual) wheel's virtually moving chairs/
cabins - the ferris wheel itself never spins on its assigned axis...In
this case, the original virtualization/asbtraction of the Vienna
Riesenrad has been further virtualized/abstracted to suit the playful
whimsy of the avatar playground known as Second Life. In this sense,
the Riesenrad has been reduced to a theatrical prop without its own
mechanical autonomy.

At the wheel's maximum orchestral capacity, Riesenrad includes
aleatoric elements from the North American Kiddie game, Musical
Chairs.

If the wheel is not filled to capacity during the performance, the
conductor (who produces their own sound drones that emanating from the
magical laser baton and the conductor's sidepack) can determine how the
piece ends based on his/her personal aesthetic judgement.

In the case of the composition's World Premiere at Wien Modern, the
Composer/Conductor will discretely end the composition at the 15
minute mark. For this abridged composition, the Composer will allow
the Modernists (who by nature, prefer immediacy to reflection) to play
first in order to illustrate the speed and dexterity of the virtual
wheel's clockwise and counter-clockwise axis.... These Modernists play 2
custom in-world performance interfaces that allow them to trigger at
will 24 recycled samples from various composers affiliated with
Vienna. The Modernists have two HUDs to suit their mood(s). One is
Germanic and the other is Turkish in order to suit the closeted
cosmopolitan character of the historical and contemporary Vienna.

After awhile (well, 5 minutes actually), the Composer and will then
gradually introduce the more contemplative Classicist performers
(flute and cello players) who are assigned specially composed mini-
mantras from which they must perform gruelling circular transposition
cycles that have been directly appropriated from the Romantic Genius
of Beethoven's later String Quartets.

Riesenrad in essence, is the ultimate abstration of a perpetual Slow-
Motion machine built for the hyper-post-modern age.

PERFORMANCE SNAPSHOTS FROM THE PREMIERE OF RIESENRAD AT WIEN MODERN...

Here is a visual overture of the ferris wheel designed by the Orchestra's in-house set-architect, DeThomas Dibou. This snapshot was likely taken on the very first downstroke (bat) of my conductor's baton. This baton, by the way not only produced duo-tone lasers but also produced its own sound loops via a HUD (Heads Up Display) that you can see at the top of the screen. This is probably only of those instances where the conductor actually directly contributes to the sonic palette of the orchestra in addition to merely cueing the ensemble's sounds in the conventional manner.

At the top of this pic, there are 3 buttons:
1) A purple rewind button for counter-clockwise wheel movements
2) A blue stop button which stops both the conducting cues for the orchestra as well as the sound and....
3) The pink forward button which allows the orchestra to move foreward.

Each conducting motion has it own drone-loop sound that I composed as it represents the conducted motion (engine) of the ferris wheel. These loops were embedded into this playable HUD by Bingo Onomatopoeia.

In this view, we can see in more detail the nametags of the Orchestra performers as well as some distinguished members of the audience (well, at least those who managed to peer into my eye-cam at the time).

Here is a good close-up of the conductor (me) in action.

Here I am at the end of the performance of Riesenrad. Instead of giving the crowd an encore, I displayed the back of my t-shirt to the audience. Viva Mozart! Rock me Amadeus!

INSPIRATION BEHIND RIESENRAD:

Well, it should be pretty obvious by now that I would be influenced by what Vienna is most famous for, their Genius-Level Classical Composers! Of course being inspired by pure Germanic genius kinda sorta means that the standard for achievement is somewhat higher than usual, eh? I mean if it is anything slightly aesthetically less than what the Viennese-based composers have produced, then the audience simply will not take notice, correct? No wonder composing my Riesenrad exhausted me! SIGH! Only history will judge whether or not my efforts have merited even a nod from my divine ancestors!

Speaking of Germanic genius level composers, I guess I should also retroactively acknowledge one of the last living composers from this immortal pantheon, Karlheinz Stockhausen. I had no idea about his ferris-esque spiral piece shown here until my dress rehearsal but maybe it was in my subconscious somewhere and for sure, Stockhausen would certainly inspire anything produced in a virtual world because his own compositions in the "real" world were probably only really meant to have been played in an environment such as Second Life or some astral parallel dimension or something. Maybe Stockhausen is channeling an avatar alt or some extraterrestrial being from elsewhere because I heard this story from my orchestral colleague Hars Hefferman. Hefferman studied with Stockhausen in RL and apparently, Stockhausen insisted that his performers truly learn to fly as he had outlined this in his score - he was NOT being symbolic when he said this and I am guessing his mind may have briefly been lurking in SL during his own rehearsal! Geez, I think maybe Stockhausen might genuinely become interested in composing for the AOM since at least we know how to make his score come literally (well, virtually) to life!

Another influence which I absolutely need to mention before I (conveniently)forget is the Maximalist (formerly Minimalist) work of the Dutch composer, Diderik Wagenaar (not to be confused with the German composer, Richard Wagner). He composed this piece called Metrum (ca, 1981-84) which I heard and subconsciously absorbed via aesthetic osmosis when studying music composition at Uvic in RL a decade ago... Metrum actually reminds me alot of my own Riesenrad composition and it probably does not help my novelty credibility to recall that his album cover also featured a ferris wheel...sigh! I guess I am enhancing the myth that creativity in Second Life is only about remediation of something more "original" in Real Life...sigh!

In terms of other European influences, I guess I will have to concede that there was at least one (gasp!) French influence. Olivier Messiaen's Modes of Limited Transposition definitely had an influence on my (here is my new title) "Modes of Relatively Frustrating and Still Somewhat Limited Circular-Virtuo-Spatial-Aleatoric-Romantic Transposition(s)". Ok, my permutation might not be as catchy sounding but at least the result is nowhere near as bird-brained! Heheheheheheh. ;-)

Hmmmmmm... Any other influences? Oh yes, I have one American one and several Canadian ones. The Orchestra's Founder Maximillian Nakamura wisely pointed out that I am influenced by the polytonality of Charles Ives. Even in my music composition days at University in RL, my Professors compared my early work and sensibility to (probably a second-rate) Charles Ives. I have actually been revisiting Ives lately but not for his aesthetic innovations.... On the contrary, the next lesson that I need to learn from my continentally tuned guru is how to enact a get-rich-quick scheme ASAP so I can focus all my future efforts on my art :-D Some of you might know that Ives is one of the few independently wealthy maverick composers to have ever existed and this was because he channeled some of his genius towards the creation and development of the then-radical concept of life insurance.

As for my most local Canadian influences, I am a big fan of the Electacoustic scene championed by Montreal's Empreintes DIGITALes Label: Paul Dolden (whom I interviewed in RL for Musicworks Magazine) and Robert Normandeau (whom I had some drinks with in RL at the Bengal Lounge in the Empress Hotel in Victoria) are a couple examples of the composers I am deeply influenced by. Another extremely local influence is Barry Truax who (along with people like Curtis Roads), invented granular synthesis.

Outside of the music world, I was also directly inspired by a musical lecture that the Dutch artist John Körmeling gave a few years ago in Vancouver (RL) about his drive-in ferris wheel called, Mobile Fun.

Ok, enough about my musical muses and other assorted immortal idols, lets focus now on more practical matters...

MY COMPOSITIONAL PROCESSES:

THE CLASSICALLY NOTATED SCORES FOR THE "CLASSICIST" PERFORMERS:

Before I show you the notated scores, here are the official Performance Instructions for Classicist Performers (which applied to both flute and cello players):

1) NAVIGATING FROM START TO FINISH ON THE FERRIS WHEEL (RIESENRAD)

a- At the composition's beginning, all performers pick their own seat on the ferris wheel and wait for Wirxli to begin conducting (or through a group IM from Wirxli).

b- All seats will seat one avatar except for the very top and very bottom chair, which will seat two.

c- Sitting is done by right-clicking on the chair. To move to the next chair, just right-click on it and "sit here".

d- To begin the piece, Wirxli will conduct (using a sound and corresponding animation) the Orchestra to begin moving in clockwise motion but this will reverse over time.

d- Please only move your avatar from chair-to-chair when Wirxli is conducting. If Wirxli has stopped waving the baton, you must also remain in your chair.

e- If there are no places on the wheel either directly in front or behind you to sit down when Wirxli stops conducting. You join the audience and stop playing.

2) PAY ATTENTION TO WIRXLI's CONDUCTING ANIMS AND CORRESPONDING SOUNDS

a- When instructed by Wirxli (in conducting mode), the players will perform either in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion.

b- Wirxli is the conductor and will be playing two samples while conducting.

c- One sound to cue the performers to gradually move from chair to chair (right-clicking on the next chair) in a clockwise motion.

d- ...and the other in a counter-clockwise motion. The counter-clockwise sample sounds slightly "backwards" and is also lower in pitch.

3) CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE INSTRUCTIONS

a- The Cello and flute players have their own "mantra" available as an uploaded image showing a few measures of conventional notation composed by Wirxli.

b- Each performer will transpose their personal mantra depending on the chair they are sitting on.

c- The rhythm is merely suggested for playing under ideal conditions.

d- If one cannot play their instrument reliably in realtime due to lag or other factors, one can treat the notated score as a basic TONE-ROW.

e- Transposing the pitch-set (tone row) in ascending or descending order will be determined by the direction each Classcist is traveling on the wheel.

f- The classcist can move after playing one repetition of the mantra (or Tone Row) in its correct transposition and direction (see below).

g- The transposition is as follows: Starting chair = notated mantra...
Pink chair = transposed up/down one semitone,
blue chair = transposed up/down one minor third ,
purple chair = transposed up/down an additional semitone

h- After going through 3 seat transpositions, one may return to the tonic position (as seen in notated score) and begin transposing again.

i- When moving clockwise, please play the entire mantra from beginning to end once unless Wirxli stops conducting.

j- when moving counter-clockwise, please play the mantra in RETROGRADE unless Wirxli stops conducting but the colour-coded transpositions still apply.

4) STRUCTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

a- The composition formally ends when enough orchestra players cannot find a place to sit in their immediate vicinity when Wirxli's conducting has paused.

b- You are not encouraged to listen to the Modernists as they might distract you from your realtime sight-reading pitch transpositions and focus on the conductor.

c- most importantly, focus on the conductor and the avatar(s) one seat next to you (front and behind).

NOTE: IF THERE IS ANY QUESTION ABOUT THE CLACISSISTS'S PERFORMANCE ROLE IN "RIESENRAD", PLEASE CONTACT WIRXLI DIRECTLY ON THE GOOGLE LIST OR IN-WORLD.

This is the c-score for the hypercello's mantra. The rhythm is subjective and also based on the bandwidth speed ("lag") at the time. So, if the bandwidth lag is really slow, the performer can ignore the tempo and rhythmic intervals and treat the score more like a tone-row.

This is the c-score for the hyperflute's mantra. The fact that the notation seems "faster" than the cello's score does not mean the flute may actually play faster in realtime. Again, the speed of this can vary according to the performer's confidence in the piece and the bandwidth "lag" that may slow down the instrument's response to the performer. The rhythmic notation is only meant to be performed under ideal conditions and can also be played as a tone-row if the instrument is barely responsive due to bandwidth "lag" issues.

THE MODERNIST HUDs DESIGNED BY BINGO ONOMATOPOEIA FOR THE MODERNIST PERFORMERS:

Before I show the picture, here is an excerpt from the official Performance Instructions for the Modernist Performers (and I quote):

1) NAVIGATING FROM START TO FINISH ON THE FERRIS WHEEL (RIESENRAD)

a- At the composition's beginning, all performers pick their own seat on the ferris wheel and wait for Wirxli to begin conducting (or through a group IM from Wirxli).

b- All seats will seat one avatar except for the very top and very bottom chair, which will seat two.

c- Sitting is done by right-clicking on the chair. To move to the next chair, just right-click on it and "sit here".

d- To begin the piece, Wirxli will conduct (using a sound and corresponding animation) the Orchestra to begin moving in clockwise motion but this will reverse over time.

d- Please only move your avatar from chair-to-chair when Wirxli is conducting. If Wirxli has stopped waving the baton, you must also remain in your chair.

e- If there are no places on the wheel either directly in front or behind you to sit down when Wirxli stops conducting. You join the audience and stop playing.

2) PAY ATTENTION TO WIRXLI's CONDUCTING ANIMS AND CORRESPONDING SOUNDS

a- When instructed by Wirxli (in conducting mode), the players will perform either in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion.

b- Wirxli is the conductor and will be playing two samples while conducting.

c- One sound to cue the performers to gradually move from chair to chair (right-clicking on the next chair) in a clockwise motion.

d- ...and the other in a counter-clockwise motion. The counter-clockwise sample sounds slightly "backwards" and is also lower in pitch.

3) ABOUT THE HUDs DESIGNED BY AND DISTRIBUTED BY BINGO ONOMATOPOEIA

a- Each Modernist is given two circular performance HUDs: Germanic and Turkish (the latter with crescent shaped buttons).

b- For both HUDs, you may play any of the buttons with any rhythm in any sequence as long as it corresponds to the colour of the chair that you are seated in.

c- When moving to a different coloured seat, you must select only the buttons that match the corresponding seat colour... Blue, Pink and Purple.

d- For the most part, you are encouraged to play the Germanic HUD far more often than the Turkish one.

e- It is only with restraint and in the height of passion do you resort to playing a colour-coded button from your Turkish HUD wheel.

f- When you press any button from your HUD, your avatar's body will automaticaly animate as it if were a ferris wheel chair.

3) STRUCTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

a- The composition formally ends when enough orchestra players cannot find a place to sit in their immediate vicinity when Wirxli's conducting has paused.

b- Even though you are allowed to improvise with the HUDs and are only limited to interface colour coordination, listening to other Modernists is encouraged.

c- You are also encouraged to listen to the Classicists while improvising with the Modernist HUDs but most importantly, focus on the conductor and the avatar(s) one seat next to you (front and behind).

NOTE: IF THERE IS ANY QUESTION ABOUT THE MODERNIST'S PERFORMANCE ROLE IN "RIESENRAD", PLEASE CONTACT WIRXLI DIRECTLY ON THE GOOGLE LIST OR IN-WORLD.

Ok! Phew! You must almost be feeling the same stress each Modernist performer felt during the Dress Rehearsal, right? Heheheheheheh... Ok, as a reward for your virtual sweat and tears, here is the pic to illustrate the 2 interfaces:

Here is the aforementioned pic I took of myself at the Music Academy shortly before this blog posting was published simply for the purpose of showing you (the blog reader) these 2 Modernist Performance HUDs that Bingo Onomatopoeia helped me bring to fruition. As you can see, each HUD is mirrored after the design of the ferris wheel (that the Orchestra's Set-Architect Dethomas Dibou actually built using the HUD interface design themselves as 2-dimensional schematic diagrams). So in this case, each of the 12 buttons (12 per HUD, that is) represent the 12 ferris wheel chairs. The HUD on the left is the plainer Germanic one while the funkier and less restrained Turkish HUD on the right was originally supposed to have crescent-shaped buttons but instead, wound up looking like the marshmallow moons that one can find in Lucky Charms brand cereal boxes for kiddies in North America...sigh! ;-) And in no way, am I making a direct correlation between these 2 illusrated HUDs and the 2 photographed DUD(e)s from the Second Viennese School shown boldly in the background... although, now that I think about it, I think Berg was slightly more "Turkish" than Webern....hmmmm...if only those two composers switched spaces or the Academy could have inverted their pose in photoshop somehow? Maybe then, everything would fall into place and we could accept the Received Canon ;-)

SELECTED PHOTOS FROM THE RIESENRAD REHEARSALS:

Photo by Maxxo Klaar. Here is a nice shot of me on the old unvarnished conductor's podium which was being designed in realtime by Bingo Onomatopoeia who is also the Orchestra's Instrument Builder. In this pic, you can see Maxxo has rolled right over in anticipation of further choreographed rolling, tilting and rocking on performance day. In the video at the top of this posting, you can also see some extreme close-ups of Maxxo rolling over.

Photo by Maxxo Klaar.Maxxo took this wonderful action-shot of me entertaining the masses while cueing the Orchestra with my divinely conducted laser light show.

Photo by Maxxo Klaar.Here is a sublime shot of the immortal and divinely guided Conductor/Composer taken from the lowly vantage point of the music critic...heheheheheh!

Photo by Maxxo Klaar.Here is a momentary peek back not just behind the scenes and behind the wheel but also behind the times way back into the earliest rehearsal days but let me tell you, I am hardly nostalgic for this preperatory era. During these rehearsals, 2 identical ferris wheels (one was a virtual doppelganger) were accidentally installed side by side and the floor was littered with one giant invisible trap door (more like a trap HOLE, actually!). At least this pic shows the full seating arrangement on the floor.

I actually managed to take a snapshot at the exact moment that Maxxo mentioned the infamous trap "doors".

Photo by Maxxo Klaar. Here is an additional close up of the seating arrangement and also illuminates the immortal profile of the Orchestra's in-house videographer, Evo Szuyuan.

Here is another look at the conductor's podium at an even earlier stage of development.

Yet another podium for you here but you will see that at the time this snapshot was taken, the podium was being sufficiently sized so I can could stand on it properly without falling (or nodding) off...

This pic is important to pay attention to because not only is it another glorious example of me conducting close-up (all you scholars can drool in awe over my meticulous masterstrokes) but it also shows a detail of my interactive floating sidepack (yes, the thingie that looks like a miniature version of one of the pink chairs...this sidepack was also designed by Bingo) that was responsible for remotely generating and spatially transmitting my conductor drones. Acting as a kind of meterosexual traffic light, the sidepack was also colour coded so it could indicate to the Orchestra players the direction they should be moving in on the wheel (purple for counter-clockwise and pink for clockwise). For awhile, this sidepack was too small to be visible by enough players so they kept on missing their cues. During this uncertain transitional rehearsal period, Bingo temporarily enlarged this sidepack but it grew to also have an autonamous life of its own. I guess the sidepack had an insatiable appetite to grow even larger so it began to look for some local avatar pixel-flesh to consume. It was not long before my very own trusty sidepack (more like side-PacMan) knocked me off the conductor's podium and chased me all the way to the other side of Odyssey Island. I know this sounds kind of surreal to those blog readers who are only accustomed to rehearsal situations in real life but how often do you come across a scenario where the conductor gets hunted down by his own ravenous gear? I wish I had a snapshot of this sidepack chase scene but unfortunately, I was too busy engaging in the fight-or-flight survival instincts that I was unable to take a good photo of my mutated monster sidepack. Regardless, I eventually came to my senses and realized during our dress rehearsal that I had to re-shrink the sidepack as it was getting to hazardous to live the lifestyle of a populist just to feed the functional needs of my own Orchestra. Oh, on another note, that weird looking "Starship Enterprise" thingie is some sort of sculpture by another artist (maybe Dethomas Dibou?) so that was not an intentional component of my Riesenrad's set design but it sure did make the audience members contemplate the possibility that my compositation may have possessed an additional enigmatic component.

Here is a generic pic that basically is just showing you a decent side profile of one of our regular rehearsals (which occur every Tuesday) in early November.

I guess I am running out of historically meaningful pix about Riesenrad from my documentation archive but at least this one is aesthetically pleasing! Ahhhhh... How many Orchestras in Real Life get to rehearse outside with a fully forced sunset (or maybe it is sunrise)?

Well, as you and your blog-reading partner in RL walk off into the forced Schopenhauerian sunset together to contemplate the enormity of the divine meaning behind my musical composition, I should prepare the rest of my archives from the Orchestra's landmark show at Wien Modern....stay tuned for more Procrastination...er... prolific productivity ;-)

The Blog That Time Forgot...

2007-11-26T23:59:00.000-08:00

The author of this blog (me aka. Wirxli Flimflam) is 88% confident that the esteemed Sci-Fi Author and Media Philosopher, Paul Levinson thought of the title for his new sci-book precisely at the moment this picture was taken. He is shown here viewing the inspire-some (is that a word? If not, it is now) wallpaper sketches of my fellow artist colleague-in-crime, Juria Yoshikawa.

Hey there Dark Aged Avatars, Levinson Levitators and Beauty Pageant Tyrants...

Ok, this blog posting will be relatively short in length because I am way behind the times when it comes to keeping my blog up to date. I just noticed earlier this evening that I totally forgot to blog about the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's gig awhile back at the Metaverse 2007 Conference hosted by The Avastar.

In addition to the lagging back(b)log of postable content, I also have to begin compiling the various documentation from the Orchestra's megalithic blockbuster gig at Wien Modern in Vienna (where my new composition Riesenrad was premiered) that took place on Saturday. On that same day, I also did an interview for Krystal Epic where I was nominated for being the "Best Performing Artist" in Second Life so I guess I will have to blog that too sooner than later...sigh!

Well, enough about that! I am now going to chat about my 2nd in-world meeting with Paul Levinson thus far since it has come to my attention via Paul's own blog that a meeting I had with him and a couple of my friends such as(Aurel Miles and ByrneDarkly Cazalet) directly inspired a title for his new novel.

I actually remember the exact moment well where he first brought up "The Time that Light Forgot" and I also recall that it was me (for the record, Paul - tee hee) who actually made a pun on his title by calling it "The Light That Time Forgot" and I made the correlation between this new title and the Dark Ages. Well, it does not really matter who came up with the title. I do not need to see the chat history or anything to prove this matter as that would be petty anyways.

At any rate, I am pleased that Paul came up with a new and kewl title for an upcoming book and am flattered that he mentioned me as a source of inspiration. It is ultimately his concept and idea. At the time of writing, Paul has not yet figured out what kind of book he could write that would suit the title....He did mention time travel as a theme which would be great and I also think that Paul should deeply consider the fact that more novels also need to be written about Metaverse culture since there are only really the novels Neuromancer and Snow Crash out there in the classic print-media galaxy that have directly influenced the culture of Second Life - maybe it is Paul's turn to add to this genre? I am sure he could write a brilliant book about it as it is a hot topic these days.

Hmmmm...this reminds me that I am currently reading over a treatment for a film called VolaVola by the Italian film-maker avatar, Finally Outlander (Berardo Carboni in SL) which is all about how the Metaverse culture is gradually being exported from the in-world scene to the status quo of mainstream cultural and fashion worlds in RL (among other things).

I guess I should summarize this posting so I can then finish reading the second half of the treatment for this film since I might be starring a cameo role in it and maybe even writing some of the soundtrack for this film that will begin production in 2008. I had a meeting today with Finally Outlander earlier today about exactly these prospects. So much to do and so little time left to blog out the light with more text-pixels...sigh!

Oh geez, I am cluttering my 2-bit thug life (and mind) with non-linear blog-narratives at the moment so I should resume my "professional" writing style and get back to the meeting with Paul....

Ok....Paul.... Hmmmm... Well, I have known Paul virtually for quite awhile, actually.
I interviewed him for Intelligent Agent Magazine in 1999 but I guess I have not "seen" a kinetic virtual (and visual) version of his avatar until his recent interview with Kenny Hubble in SL a short awhile ago.

I guess that interview session drew him in hook line and sinker to the immersive world of Second Life and so now I am expecting to see him in there on a fairly regular basis - I mean, he even has a bookstore in there now :-)

It probably also helps that his new hostesses are keeping him cozy in their swanky pad.
Couch surfing never felt so comfy! :-D

Ok, I think it is time I left this blog posting alone now and continue reading the film treatment for VolaVola before my biological self packs it in for the night.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog postings about:

1) The AOM at Metaverse 2007

2) The AOM at Wien Modern

3) My interview along side Fau Ferdinand with Sunnie Beaumont about our SLart nominations (Man Michinaga was there too).

From the recent archives vault #2 - Second Front at PERFORMA 07 (NYC)...

2007-11-23T00:33:00.000-08:00

Photo by Tran Spire. SECOND FRONT from left-right: Tran Spire, Man Michinaga, AliseIborg Zhaoying, Fau Ferdinand, Gazira Babeli (King Kong), Wirxli Flimflam (me), Tea Chenille, Lizsolo Mathilde and Great Escape. Here is Second Front's official group photo for the Wrath of Kong (original title was "Konkey Bong") performance created for the PERFORMA 07Festival in New York. This performance was curated by Defne Ayas and Esa Nickle and took place on November 03, 2007.

Hey there PERFORMA pariahs, Big Apple belchers and donkey-eared King Ding-Dongs,

Phew! Finally, I have had enough spare time to post my basic reflections about Second Front's epic performance for the PERFORMA festival in New York!!!

My colleague in Second Front, AliseIborg Zhaoying (Penny Leong Browne) has already written an official posting on our group blog here.

In addition to this blog posting, Second Front co-member Great Escape also has posted some hi-rez pictures from this performance.

I also know that Tran Spire (another Second Front co-member) recorded some video of our performance so I cannot wait to see it on our group blog!

In the meantime, please check out the only pictures I personally took of this performance session. Well, the first pic is not mine but the rest are...

Before we formally commenced our performance, we spent some quality time ensuring that Sircus Tilling (the in-world correspondent for Art in America magazine) could keep us posed in group-formation long enough to take some decent photos for publication. Second Front is very excited at the prospect of appearing in Art in America in RL. If you look at the bottom of this pic, you will see Esther Decuir in a brown biplane. She has become our embedded journalist for the news network, SLNN. She has been embedded into many of our performances lately which has helped her cover the Breaking News more accurately.

It took us awhile to leave the photo-shoot and progress towards our roles as performers. I mean, what is a successful performance without ample documentation? Sigh!

Here I am posing next to an (even more) two-dimensional simulacrum of the famous NYC sculptor, Richard Serra. For those who are generally attuned to more than one dimension in the artworld, the appearance of Serra at this level of the building (and the game, for that matter) might give you a case of deja vu as Serra makes a similar appearance in a parallel side of the metaverse.

Here is the first snapshot of me reaching the top of the Empire State Building. I am so high up, I am even slightly above the Super Mario Clouds region.

Here are most of Second Front at the very top of the Empire State Building. We managed to ascend several stories above the aforementioned archangelic clouds.

In this pic you can see that Kong's gravity was severely being tested. I managed to hammer Kong's foot while Tran's and Great Escape's biplanes had managed to disorient the mutated monkey and throw him/her (Kong's gender was never pre-determined) off balance.

Here is a good pic of King (Gaz) Kong barely hanging onto the top of the Empire State Building. This was perhaps the foreshadowing moment during the performance where the audience may have figured out that the end is nigh for the ape standing his/her ground in the sky. It was immediately after this point, that I rezzed my own biplane and took to the skies for the final battle!

After some reckless yet coldly calculating attack sorties, I eventually realized my biplane was running out of gas so I knew I had to crash land somewhere so what better place to go out with a ceremonial bang than crashing directly into members of the in-world audience? Heheheheheheh....

GAME OVER! Here is a scene from our Gameover Victory Dance! Lizsolo Mathilde had officially announced the completion of all the levels, King (Gaz) Kong has been defeated, the flying team under the leadership of Fau Ferdinand had completed all the necessary sorties, all the Princess Peaches (Man, Tea and Alise) have been rescued and so this was the perfect opportunity for the rest of us to climb onto Kong's lifeless avatar body and beat him/her while he/she was down. I knew my mallet would come in handy after awhile...I did not just want it to be a performance prop! STOP! HAMMER TIME! It's Clobberin' time!!!

SNAPSHOTS FROM SECOND FRONT's DRESS REHEARSAL:

Here are some Second Front members congregating at the performance space in Gazira's Locusolus property just in time to begin preparations for our dress rehearsal.

As you can see, accidents can happen during the rehearsal. Here is a pic of me and my bi-plane designed by Cubey Terra. It looks like I (un)successfully ran out of gas and therefore crash-landed my plane right into the Empire State Building... Oh wait, maybe that was actually an intentional strategy! ;-) I knew that when it came to performance time, I would target the in-world audience instead rather than the heart of the Empire...

Here I am in full Mario and Wario mode posing for the camera...At the point this pic was taken, I was practicing my gradual ascending and descending routines up and down the ramp system of the Empire State Building. I believe this pic was taken before I finally got ahold of a barrel launcher :-)

SNAPSHOT OF THE OFFICIAL PERFORMA INVITATION:

Here is photo-documentation from our very first meeting with the PERFORMA curator(s) known as Performa Kamachi. At this time, Esa Nickle was behind the avatar in RL but her co-curator Defne Ayas has also been known to possess the avatar from time to time. This meeting occurred sometime in the late summer and it was at that time that we had just found out that PERFORMA had spent the a few weeks prior trying to locate us in-world so they could formally invite us to perform for the festival on November 03, 2007.

From the recent archives vault #1 - Second Front at LIVE2007...

2007-11-22T21:44:00.001-08:00

Here I am arriving on the scene just in time to switch from my curatorial role at the LIVE Biennial to that of an avatar performance artist... This performance was a direct cross between Hermann Nitsch's Orgies and Mysteries Theatre (including Hermann's organ soundtrack) combined with well...ummmm...Second Front's own retrospective legacy of mutual pan-narcissism ;-) For your info, the foxxy lady in the foreground is the Western Front's camera avatar, Westernfront Obscure.

Hey there LIVEly art-historians and pixel-dust collecting choreographers,

First of all, I would like to announce that yesterday was the 1-year anniversary of my blog (well, my very first posting was actually on November 20th, 2006 but there was no picture in that entry).

Ok, lets fast-forward to the present-day....

Some of you blog-readers may have attended two of Second Front's recent performances within the past month or two and might be wondering where all our recent archives are, right? Well, we have been too busy focusing on the next performance that is always looming in the near future to really reflect properly on our classic performances from the recent past.

For better of for worse, Second Life works on an extremely fast time scale and it can be exhausting to try and keep up with all the bloggings and such especially when one has a real life to maintain behind the scenes.

I actually have hardly any time to even blog these relatively moldy old performances tonight because quite frankly, I am premiering my new music composition "Riesenrad" with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse for the Wien Modern Festival in Vienna this saturday and then on December 6th, I have to perform with Second Front yet again for the Art Basel Miami festival in Miami Beach - coordinated as part of the TELECULTURE festival via the Pace Digital Gallery. Oh, and I did mention that the Canadian representatives of Second Front just presented last week at the Interactive Futures Conference in Victoria, B.C. (my RL hometown)?

How can one be grounded in the "now" when the future is always in your face?

Anyways, Second Front are still in the process of digitizing some archived video-documentation and figuring out what to write. I should mention that I was also curating some performances for the LIVE Biennial (also known as the LIVE "Biennale" because I guess no one can agree on how to spell the festival's name) and only a few have been digitized so far because Tea Chenille's (my RL Wife) computer for editing video has stopped working (that is a long story in itself)...SIGH! I know... This is starting to sound like the classic "Dog Ate my Homework" excuse.

Ok, no more excuses, here is some (virtually) tangible evidence for you that Second Front did indeed perform for the LIVE 2007 Biennial of Performance Art in Vancouver. The date for this was October 20th, 2007. We projected our performance into the Western Front building in Vancouver. Our performance, "Theatre of the Subliminal Front" was co-curated by Rubaiyat Shatner (James Morgan) from Ars Virtua and former Second Front member, Loveless Finsbury (Natalie Loveless) as part of the Participatory Dissent event.

Some raw footage is available online at Google Video (as you will see below) and also, my Second Front colleague, AliseIborg Zhaoying (Penny Leong Browne) has posted some official reflections on our group's blog.

Below are 2 more measly pictures I took of us performing which are not really that exciting to look at because obviously, I was too busy performing to take quality photographs....sigh!

Here you can see some more of the stage and you can also see some additional members of Second Front (there are 9 of us in total).

In this picture, you can see more audience members arriving including such luminaries as Bibbe Oh and the Italian film director Finally Outlander.

Some friends of mine have submitted additional photos but I will have to go through them to make sure I have the photo-credits and hyperlinks assembled properly for a proper posting session.

In the meantime, here is a sneak preview of the raw video footage that I will be cross-blogging very shortly...

Here is another video from this performance that was documented by Maxxo Klaar. He recorded this footage during the time when Second Front crashed the entire sim (virtual property).... How about this for a piece of Film Noir, eh?

Find more videos like this on Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance

... stay tuned for blogged archives of Second Front's gig at PERFORMA in NYC ...

Metaverse Meetup at Stanford...

2007-11-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Here I am waiting for the live video from the RL conference in Stanford to begin... I made sure I spared no expense and dutifully dressed for the occasion since I figured the lobby of the International Spaceflight Museum might look somewhat Posh-ish and plush.

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

Tara5 Oh has just mentioned this blog posting in her massive blog posting :-)
Please click this link and scroll down about half-way down to read all about it.
Hey there Metaverse Minglers and Stanford and Sons,

Earlier this evening and on (calculated) impulse, I attended Stanford University's Metaverse Meetup session featuring an industry talk by Mike Liebhold from the Institute for the Future.

Here is Liebhold's official bio:

"Mike Liebhold is a Senior Researcher for the Institute for the Future, IFTF, focusing on the mobile and abundant computation, immersive media and geospatial web foundations for context-aware and ubiquitous computing. Previously, Mike has worked for an impressive array of companies including Intel Labs, Netscape Communications & Apple Computer..."

And here was what he discussed:

"Abstract 3D data, maps, and software will change the way we compute and interact with spatial services. Moving beyond simple texture mapped terrain and boxes, new 3D mapping frameworks are rapidly evolving into platforms for real world virtual world media, interaction, commerce, and science. In this talk I'll review work of various groups who are building different components of a 3D Geoweb. I will first describe how their 3D data and software will work as a platform for a 3D real world virtual world, and then, what kinds of new applications and user experiences might be developed on these platforms, and then finish with a brief discussion of prospects and mechanisms for data interoperability allowing users to create, discover, use, and exchange 3D data across platforms."

At any rate, I figured it was worth attending because I really enjoy the networking sessions before and after such events (for example, I made a new connection with Tara5 Oh from Ugotrade) and I sure learned alot from previous Stanford events hosted by Lys Ware (Henrik Bennetsen in RL)... But more importantly, who could resist a representative from an Institute from the Future...

Ok, Liebhold is officially billed as being from the Institute FOR the Future but really, if you really know that much about the future and represent it, you gotta also be FROM the future right? Am I the only person who did not catch onto this conspiracy theory? As a result of this insider knowledge, I was a bit disppapointed when he did not give me the exact date when virtual and actual worlds would meld into the ultimate augmented-reality convergence/singularity scenario since he obviously knows when it is all going to happen. I was hoping he would be honest and just mention December 21, 2012 since we all know that is the date for all of this future-stuff anyway ;-)

I think he may have willingly been keeping the exact date classified since there was something eerie about him... At times, he actually appeared to me as the quantum-based shapeshifter he really is and this means that he definitely is some sort of entity from the far future...This is waaaaaaaay cooler than all the hype about David Icke and the Reptoids from Mars (no, not the name of a punk rock band)! Please check out some of the pix below to see what I mean...

Ok, this specific pic does not show any evidence to support my pet conspiracy theory but what it does show is that I managed to invite my performance art colleague Blued Food to the event :-)

I guess this pic does not show you what I mean either...Hmmm...Am I good at setting up suspense or what? Heheheheheh... Well, at least the video-stream started and you can see Henrik Bennetsen in RL introducing our otherwordly guest speaker from the future. Also, you can see that I also managed to invite my SLNN correspondent contact, Esther DeCuir to cover this event - I am sure she will have much more intelligent and objective things to say about this highly academic and corporate Stanford event than I do.

Finally, here is the beginning of Mike's lecture where he tried his best to retain his early 21st century humanoid form. But as you will soon see, our present paradigm for what constitutes "humanity" will soon evolve into something much more "virtual" and "augmented".... Even at this point, you can see Mike's aura begin to flee his contemporary corporeal form...

I think it is pretty clear to you now that Mike Liebhold is not all that he seemed. He is either from some astral dimension or from a far (or perhaps not so far) future time where the virtual and the actual have already blended into some form of etherial post-humanity built for the quantum age....

In this picture, you can see his attempt to feign classical dualism by appearing as both a Humanoid and some form of spectral entity. It looks almost as if he is becoming one with the computer-generated diagram that has been mapped beside him.

Ah-Ha! Mike has become one with his diagram! Eureka! The prophecized union/fusion of virtual and actual realms has come to pass! The future is now!

I was glad that our beloved alien presenter was in his true form long enough for me to invite my artist friend, Netwurker Twin...What better way to generate ideas for performance collaboration(s) than to collectively witness the unveiling of consensual reality! I realized after the fact that I took a snapshot of my private message-exchange with Netwurker along with this viewpoint so I have replaced our private Netwurking conversation with a nice Op-Art graphic for you so the text revealing our classified collaborative performance ideas that we have colluded on together will forever remain bound with the secrets of the future... Only someone with inside-knowledge like Mike Liebhold will ever hold the key to our future proprietary secrets...

Orchestra in Philadelphia...

2007-11-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

I arrived just in time in Singapore Harbour for the end of the panel at the iDMAa Annual Conference 2007 (International Digital Media & Arts Association)in Philadelphia. A few co-members at the Avatar Ochestra Metaverse were sitting on the panel alongside the Tokyo-based installation artist Juria Yoshikawa to hype our new music work in Second Life. Late in the morning, we gave a quick demo of Miulew Takahe's composition, Fragula.

Hey there Philadelphian philanthropists and ventriloquists-with-voice-overs,

Well this morning was a bit of a non-starter...I arrived late for the panel and then no one at the conference could hear our audio transmissions...sigh!

This is just a quick blogette today because I really should focus on more pressing blog postings and uploads but here are a few more snapshots all about this morning...

Here is another angle of the panel session. The conference moderator, Pastiche Oh appears to be invisible...lol! Maybe this was foreshadowing for her bandwidth issues later in the conference event.

We then went over to Juria Yoshikawa's and Aldomanutio Abruzzo's sound and vision installation called Liquid Light. Juria gave a quick artist talk about this installation.

Eventually, we made it down to Odyssey's sound house for our newest combo-demo of merging Miulew's Fragula with Gazira Babeli's installation called Come Together. Unfortunately, we realize that Philadelphia could not hear us in RL so we had to stop mid-way through since everyone was talking over our performance...sigh! One of these days, Linden Lab really needs to sort out their technical issues. You will probably noticed that I briefly passed out before we were about to perform. Had I know that the conference would be unable to hear us, I would have stayed down there happily unconscious....sigh!

This pic was taken just before we were about to begin performing...it was a good thing green tea was passed around as that gave me something to do since the sound never was transmitted to Phillie...sigh!

Paul Levinson in Second Life!

2007-11-05T18:53:00.000-08:00

This pic was taken a few minutes before the lecture was about to start which probably explains why some of the new arrivals were feeling (and looking) a bit gray before realizing that someone would be available to manually hand out the refreshments ;-)

Hey there Global Villagers, C-Theorists, Media Eco-Warriors, Marshall Lawmakers and Straight 'n' Soft-Edged Levinheads!

I just found out about 2 hours before this event that the acclaimed media philosopher and sci-fi writer Paul Levinson (the heir apparent to Canadian Media-Megatron, Marshall McLuhan) was giving a special interview session for Ken Hubble's Media Ecology SL Talk Show series so despite all my backlog of unposted bloggettes left to manifest, I just HAD to attend this one.

As a quick side note, for all those from the LIVE Biennial, I PROMISE to begin digitizing the 6 hours worth of archived performances (that I curated two weeks ago already) tonight...I Promise!

Ok, phew! Now that I have that off my chest, I can now continue blogging about Paul's in-world talk...

I actually interviewed Paul once in Real Life (RL) for Intelligent Agent magazine in New York but is has been almost a decade (ca. 1999) since I last asked him all the hardest and most profound questions he ever had to deal with such as "where are the refreshments at this talk?", "please tell me more about your laggy Postman who was famous for going postal?" and "in what way does Zork III really blow Second Life like, totally out of the water in terms of full spectrum immersion?" ;-)

So anyways, yeah, I interviewed Paul wa y back in 1999...This interview is so moldy-old, I was even paranoid about the Y2K bug-induced doomsday scenario back then...whoa!

Well, enough about my clandestine freelance journalist CV, here are some pictographs to increase your intimate and interactive 2-dimensional experience... Looking at these pix below is almost like being there, eh? ;-)

Gradually, more audience members begin to arrive and it suddenly occurs to us to listen to Paul's voice using the audio stream and not via the embedded voice-chat application...ooops!

Wow! Celeste's Mondrian dress is cool! Hmmm...I have been wondering if the dude named "Mcluhan Allen" could possibly be Marshall's son Eric in RL.

This is almost the same pic except my friends Aurel Miles and Kid Kuhn added themselves to the audience roster :-) Speaking of friends, SLNN correspondent Esther Decuir also managed to attend this event.

I am not sure why I took this extra snapshot now...was it to show some more closted media-theorists arriving fashionably late? hmmmmm.... ;-)

This angle shows you a RL photo of Paul.

***UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE - I REMOVED THE VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH PAUL LEVINSON BECAUSE IT OPENED AUTOMATICALLY AND WAS SLOWING DOWN MY BLOG PAGE TOO MUCH - TO VIEW THE VIDEO, PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK HERE....***

AOM at the Eslöv Biennalen in Sweden...

2007-11-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

This is the official logo for the Eslöv Biennalen 2007.

To see Dizzy Banjo's photos from this event, please click here.

Also, Dizzy Banjo blogged this event...

Hey there Ladonians, repetoire requesters and Eslövbirds!

Normally, I would blog in chronological order but at the moment, I am still too blogged down with documentation flooding in from Second front's PERFORMA show in NYC that occurred over the weekend as well as still being totally back-blogged with video footage to digitize from the Second LIVE event in Mid-October.

Regardless of the fact that I have been lagging down from my documentation duties lately, I felt I could at least blog this morning's orchestral performance in Eslöv now since the little documentation that I have is already sufficiently comprehensive and complete.

This Biennial was curated by the Ladonian Minister of Art, Fredrik Axwik and the festival garnered some recent global publicity due to the fact it had banned the controversial Swedish artist and Ladonian Secretary of State, Lars Vilks from even publically attending the event...

Well, enough about politics, here are some more snapshots from the orchestral repetoire...

Here we are at one of our usual rehearsal spaces on Odyssey Island about to play Miulew Takahe's Rue Blanche. Since Miulew is one of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's Swedish members, we felt it was best to spotlight his compositions for the performance.

Here is a picture of us playing Maximillian Nakamura's classic composition, Fadheit at an exotic location that looked like some sort of psycho-delic Neo-GOA installation from the prehistoric era (at least relative to SL's existence) known as the RAVE decade (1990s).

Here is a performance of Miulew Takahe's Fragula in an even more exotic location (well ok, I am just saying this to up the hype ante, if you know what I mean)...

Here is another snapshot showing Fragula in action :-)

Orchestra in OSLO (NOTAM)...

2007-10-31T16:17:00.000-07:00

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)...

2007-10-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-10-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-10-10T00:41:00.001-07:00

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.

Solo Performance at Burning Life!

2007-09-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-09-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-18T22:59:00.000-07:00

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....