Wirxli ON THE SPOT!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xxXtenxion Panel in Regensburg...

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

DRESSCODE AVATAR - TURNING OVER A SECOND LEIF...

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

***UPDATE FROM THE NEAR FUTURE***

HARS HEFFERMAN HAS BLOGGED ABOUT THIS PANEL.

Hey there avatar performance art and academic panel fans,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

OSMOSA - opening night for an open source museum...

Here I am at the grand opening of the brand new Open Source Museum of Open Source Art - OSMOSA.
This snapshot was taken right when me and my personal bodyguard met the curator, Deborah Maertens...

To check out the official photos from the OSMOSA opening, click here.

Hey performance art and open source fans!

Phew! The deadly combo of mixing RL (Real Life) with SL (Second Life) has totally worn me out!

I started this blog late last night/early morning and the blogging and other networking/socializing never seem to stop!

I think Deborah Maertens' new museum has a lot of potential to become the sort of next-generation museum that my RL buddy Douglas Davis envisioned in his book Museum of the Third Kind. Roy Ascott also wrote a bit about the potential of such a museum. For this Second Life version, it looks like the concept was developed by the founder of Rhizome, Mark Tribe.

Well, I had a good time meeting a bunch of people at the opening and I am in discussions with my colleagues in Second Front a nd the museum to alter the architecture of the building in a performative and realtime way.

Check out the other snapshots from this event...

...here is a close-up of that same moment when I first met Deborah. And yes, I needed at least one close-up to show off the gleaming bling of my Chanel shades. ;-)

The chat-trialogue in this pic is referencing the fact that when we first arrived to meet Deborah, the space was totally laggy and therefore, just about everyone and everything looked totally gray. At the point this snap was taken, the immediate view around us had finally rezzed. However, there were frequent world-crashes and the continuous re-grayfication of OSMOSA...

...I think from this pic, you can see what I mean...some people look like their usual selves but other people were beginning to look rather gray... Maybe their avatar bodies and SL identities are gradually turning into open-source templates for re-mediation? ;-) Bryan Dix (the reporter from the SL-Newspaper) was there but he was so un-rezzed, he appeared to be invisible or at least obscured by some sort of cloaking device! My friend LillyEliska Kralamoc (who has done some PR services for me in the past)was looking even more gray than the B&W Goth gal she usually is! Sugar Seville had better luck for a little while since in the beginning, she only had grayness on her shirt but later on, she lost all of her hair (baldness not pictured here)... On the more colourful side of virtual life, I met a Dutch in-world photographer named Daedalus Young. You will read more about him in a sec...

My good friend Chi5 Shenzhou arrived to check out this opening. She brought along her GF, Jew Hoorenbeek. The guy with the green hair is an artist from Rome, Italy. His SL name is DannyDarko Raymaker but I do not know who he is in RL. He gave me a link to check out but I have since lost it in my IM history...sigh! I added him as a new friend so maybe I will be blogging about his life soon :-)

This is basically just another "action" shot from the opening. In the chat-history, you will notice that my good friend Lior Humphreys was also at this opening. I will tell you about Deborah's open source painting on the wall in a sec...

First of all, I wanted to show you yet another "action" shot from the museum's main lobby. Now you can see what Lior looks like :-) You will also notice that LillyEliska has finally rezzed her fashionable gothic ensemble... In the chat-history, they are all discussing the open-source Beuys oak developed by the Pei twins...

So in no time flat, I managed to convince Daedalus Young to take a group photo of everyone nearby in front of Deborah's open-source Olympia. To check out Young's hi-rez photo, click here.

Here was what the group photo looked like from behind-the-scenes. Other people in this group photo included: Kenny Hubble (who drove around the museum in his motorcycle after this pic), JinSaeDavis Jun (OSMOSA's other curator) and the performance artist, Koco Furse. I mention Koco's cage performance in more detail in my collaborative blog with my adopted foster daughter, Fwwixli Swindlehurst. Interestingly, there was a critic nearby named Lanne Wise from Milwaulkee...I am actually on the hunt for critics to collaborate with for some future projects...maybe I can track her down again and contact her... I hope so!

The group photo session took a little awhile and that was because I kept on trying to invite additional people for the group-pose. I managed to teleport my Second Front co-performer Man Michinaga for the pic... yaaaay!

For this pic, Daedalus instructed some of us to hover in the air while the rest of us (me included) would line-up underneath. I am not sure if he has published this additional group photo yet...

Wow! Sugar is wearing some awesome purple shoes! They are much easier to notice when she is hovering in the air ;-) As you can see, I took a few pix of this group-pose.

On the subject of Sugar and her snazzy shoes, this happens to be my fave snapshot that I took of the event...I guess the close-ups allow me and my friends to display to the world our complete self-absorption and pan-narcissism, eh? Heheheheheh... I am also quite fond of this pic because it showcases my lovely and coveted Scarlett Johansson/RBK earring.

Ok, here is an aerial view showing you that there were other floors to show in addition to the main lobby where I spent most of my time. I did eventually explore the other floors with my foster daughter. If you wish to read more about my jaunt with Fwwixli at OSMOSA, click here...

Gazira Babeli's One Year Retrospective Exhibition!

I arrived just in time with my adopted daughter Fwwixli Swindlehurst and my two personal bodyguards to attend Gazira Babeli's gala opening event for her one-year retrospective exhibition at Odyssey Island's main gallery. This special media event was intended for European press, media and SLebrity VIPs/friends (such as myself).

Hey performance art and retrospective fans,

Finally, I have sobered up enough to post what I recall from attending Gazira Babeli's one-year retrospective at the main gallery on Odyssey Island with my two bodyguards and my foster daughter, Fwwixli Swindlehurst...

As some of you may know, Gaz is a colleague of mine and co-performer in Second Front.

In RL, it takes 10 years for an artist to have their first major retrospective in a gallery and/or museum but in SL, time works so fast, one year is enough to become totally recognized, collected, historicized, archived, institutionalized and reflected upon! I am waiting for my turn to have the exact same experience in a few more months :-)

This retrospective called "Collateral Damage" was curated by Sugar Seville and Beavis Palowakski. Palowakski was also the main architect for this gallery space.

Ok, I had better show you the rest of the photos I took of the event before my brain blanks out and I will have to wait another year to remember what the last retrospective looked like ;-) So, here we go...

Here is my entourage about to head back to give my personal compliments and congrats to Gaz after literally just checking out Gaz's "Nudes Descending the Staircase" (2007). One of my bodyguards, Bear Brooks was ensuring that his automatic machine gun was cocked and on high alert...As for me, I was simply high! ;-) Yes, it is true, when SLebrities get wasted, they require a pair of dark tinted shades...I got mine from Chanel.

Here we are near the front reception desk of the gallery having a glass of complimentary (and obligatory) red wine. The guards of course, were on the job so I did not expect them to drink at the opening... mind altering drugs, however, is a totally different matter! ;-) I was so elegantly wasted at the time, I am still not sure if I signed Gaz's guestbook correctly... Signing the guestbook at the time this snapshot was taken is the Oslo-based artist/curator, Plurabelle Posthorn. I am glad she was around for Gaz's one-year retrospective because I do not think I remember enough from the show (I am still sobering up) to reflect on it properly...Fortunately for me, Plurabelle did a fantastic job of articulating the wide range of classic Gazjects on display via her related blog posting for the Virtual Artists Alliance.


It was not until we decided to mingle with the crowd in the middle of the gallery that things started to get a bit rowdy. Within minutes, a bunch of Italians appeared and began to do some crazy Lambada type dirty-dancing in what looked like a deserted fire-pit! Oh ok, this must have been one of Gaz's performance scripts....oh wait! Did I pass out during the last time I witnessed and participated Gaz's "Come Together" masterpiece also from 2007? Geez, my excesses must be catching up to me since I am starting to forget where I have seen these pieces before? Oh wait! This is a retrospective...duh! Hmmmm...and where have I seen avatars like Fwwixli mutate before? Whoa! Uh.....I am sure The Ava-Star has been taking notice of my habitual drug use lately...my bodyguards can only protect my body and not my constitution nor my integrity!


Here is a quick snapshot showing SL-Newspaper reporter Bryan Dix checking out Gaz's kinetic concrete slabs with my entourage.


Apparently, one of my guards was having "ruthing" problems... Ruthing is when there is a glitch in RL (on other words, a regular day) and you log-in as a default avatar that looks like...well...Ruth...you know? The butchy type of gal that prefers platonic discussions about sex and sports a trashy mullet ;-) Well, maybe a can or two of Mama Gaz's homemade Second Soup oughtta calm my guards' nervers down from their recurring bouts of chronic Ruthitis.

Here is a gratuitous and pointless close-up of me posing with my guard Sturdus Goldblatt next to an original and authentic (yet still unsigned) Gazira Babeli exhibition sign. I took this pic because sturdy Sturdus was about to go off shift. I also decided to take a break from all this sobering up and schmoozing and left with my daughter, Fwwixli. We did not return until 6 PM SL time for the official exhibition opening....Replacing Sturdus was his company's boss, Nick Kelly...


Ok, here we are at the 6 PM opening... I just took this snapshot to show off my heart-shaped earring by Scarlett Johansson's signature 3sRBK line from Reebok. Do you like it? Can you see it? Should I have made a tiff file of a cropped image where I would zoom in to get a closer look at my ear? I think the Gaz impersonator in the background is Second Front co-performer, Man Michinaga. It is amazing who you can look like for a total of L$1! If you are wondering what those paintings in the background are doing with those "3D" chairs installed right in the middle of them, lets just say that I gotta be Frank with you, this isn't Canadian Bacon. In fact, this is where Fwwixli mutated herself for awhile!

Here is a pic that shows my new bodyguard Nick Kelly for the first time (well, she was in the previous pic but you could see her because she was buried underneath Fwwixli...Yes, Nick is actually a "she" and not a "he". As for me, my gender is also often confused especially when Fwwixli calls me "Daddy". I gotta admit though, I am actually what is known as a SLemale! I hope I will not be marginalized for saying this...hmmm...then again in the realm of performance art, marginalization and tokenism might work to my advantage! Then again, living on the margins might spoil my hard-earned SLebrity status.


Here is an aerial view of Gaz's retrospective exhibition...


...and here is yet another aerial view.



"Vino?" exclaimed Pei May (Franco Mattes) of the amazing duet with Pei Twang (Eva Mattes) called 0100101110101101.org Yes Pei and Pei, I will have some Italian red vino and I think both of you should get yourself your own bodyguards as 2007 has been a very risky year for us artists wrapped up in the SLarts Renaissance period. As soon as SL's Mannerist phase enters the scene (probably with the arrival of voice-chat in June), we will all be victims of our own fame....oh! Doomsday Idol! ;-) Seriously though, I told Pei and Pei that they really need to protect themselves soon. The price for becoming famous (even virtually famous) is that eventually, people like ourselves become unwitting victims of potential stalking (I like stalking sometimes, in moderation) and griefing (I like griefing sometimes, when it is called "performance art").

I took this pic to show how Italian things have become in SL lately...I am guessing it was the Italians all along who imported their flourishing artistic Renaissance into Second Life. Speaking of Italians, I was pleased to see that the in-world photographer Marco Manray was able to attend Gaz's opening.

Here I am in the middle of conversing with my good friend Lior Humphreys about my foster daughter while Gaz and Dancoyote Antonelli are duking it out with their superprims in the aestheticized "orgy" pit...

...different snapshot, same ol' situation ;-)

This pic was taken towards the end of my evening where I invited the CEO of the SLenquirer, Lanai Jarrico to the event...Looks like she was not the only one who brought along some personal protection so I do not feel so alone anymore in my choice to hire bodyguards....You may also notice in the chat history that Second Front co-members, Tran Spire and Lizsolo Mathilde attended the event. My partner and co-member Tea Chenille also attended this event...the pictures of her are on my blog all about Fwwixli...

My adoption celebration published in The Avastar...

"Adoption is Wonderful". The Avastar Issue #14. In the "E-mails of the Week" section, Page #11.

Hey performance art and adoption fans,

The SLebrity tabloid The Avastar has published my email notification announcing my new adopted daughter, Fwwixli Swindlehurst.

It was actually from reading the previous issue of The Avastar that I learned about the popularity of adoption agencies in SL. As a result, I felt the sudden paternal/maternal urge (yes, I am transgendered in SL) to adopt my own kid.

For more information about my new daughter, check out our official collaborative blog.

Cheerios,

Wirxli.

Sugar Seville nominates Wirxli FlimFlam for President of SL!

Sugar Seville's last answer in this interview officially mentions Wirxli FlimFlam and Man Michinaga of Second Front has publicized her personal nominations in The Avastar for President and Vice-President of Second Life.

Here is the German translation of the same article.


Hey performance art fans,

I noticed that Sugar Seville has been named the Avastar of the week for the English and German editions of issue #13.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Sugar would nominate me as the Prez of SL if I ever formally declared my nomination... Man Michinaga was mentioned as her choice for VP...Hmmm..Maybe we should both enter political arena after all? What do you think? Maybe as the ultimate form of performance art?

Cheerios,
Wirxli

Wirxli in the Travel section of The Ava-Star!

Interview with Wirxli Flimflam - Avastar Issue #12, Page#21 - Travel section.

Here is the German language version of the same article.

Hey performance art and travel fans,

Once again, an exclusive interview with me has been featured in The Avastar. This time, Leider Stepanov has interviewed me for the travel section.

Below is a sample of the cover - I think this is the first time that my name has been mentioned on the cover of the Avastar. Once again, I am seen as female... I am so pleased with myself that I have chosen to be a gender neutral avatar.
I can appear in both the Womens' and Mens' special issues ;-)

Left column - Travel section.

"WACKY" WIRXLI STRIKES AGAIN!

Wirxli Flimflam in his/her third celebrity (also known in-world as a SLebrity) appearance in the German tabloid known as The AVA-STAR. This newbie celebrity feature was written by the AVA-STAR reporter, Carrie Sodwind.

Hey folks!

Yes, once again, I appear in the German tabloid, The AVA-Star. It looks like Carrie has interpreted my official gender as being "female" which is fine by me. The more gender-ambigious I look, the more I feel like "myself"... hehheh! I am still not sure what gender I should be...it all depends on the context of the moment, I guess. To read the whole issue, click on this PDF here. For this issue, I am on page #29 (apx. page 16 on the PDF draft). To read about my previous appearances in the AVA-STAR, click here.

In the meantime, here are a couple of souvenir photos from the past week to hold you off while I prepare to blog all about my brand new PR Office on Sugar Seville's Odyssey Island...


Speaking of The AVA-STAR, their headquarters designed by Aimee Weber happens to by one of my preferred drinking holes and social haunts. Here I am with my good friend Nyko Nakamura. We are hanging out for a drink together in the official Ava-Star bar and lounge.

STRANGEST CULTURE WITH SECOND FRONT

Here I am with some members of Second Front. Sitting next to me with the tan hat is VR Community pundit, Howard Rheingold. Howard appears to have nodded off during the screening of Lynn Hershman Leeson's movie about Steve Kurtz for the Sundance Film Festival. For some reason, I thought "Penny Proost" with the red hair and green dress in the back row (obscured by the trademark "Wacky Wirxli" hairstyle) may have been the Second Life avatar for Tilda Swinton. To view official press coverage from this screening event, please click on this link from Stanford University.

In addition to Stanford's media list, there seemed to be adequate press coverage by the Metaverse Messenger at this screening. M2 Staff photographer, Phedre Dumouriez took an official photo of Second Front but I have not see it published quite yet. M2's staff reporter, Untamable Wildcat was also there but so far has only reviewed the screening itself and not Second Front's performance there.

More details of this screening performance with Second Front can by find by clicking this link here and also this link here.