The event promises to be an interesting one with a cross section of performance art + sound + dance + cinema + fine arts + meeting place.

Above: Video documentation of the installation Here, Now.

There, Now, a mixed reality installation, continues work on ideas of space/place initiated as part of the concurrent series of interventions (Intervention #1 & Intervention #2) at I AM Columbia

On entering the installation at Push the visitor is presented with what resembles a vista of another space, a combined place that employs live imagery from four continents together with rudimentary Second Life primitives and dynamic effects such as simulated water and particles.

Above: Installation exterior.

Similar to Intervention #2, the installation is a way and means of seeing out of the ‘virtual’ space that is Second Life however this time it is our global physical environment we see which has been cut and pasted together. Distance, time and place as experienced in ‘real’ life are folded together. On closer inspection however the installation is revealed to be designed to be seen from a single viewpoint. ‘Real’ mountains, forests and skies become flats on the ‘virtual’ stage of Second Life, moving around them reveals their true shape, their featureless sides and back and the props that supposedly support their (’virtual’) physical weight.

Above: Click image for a gallery of installation photos.

More than a Second Life space, blacked off from the environment of Second Life within its own construction, it is almost completely isolated from the ‘virtual’ world yet acknowledges and underlines its falsehood. The space is visually analogous to pictorial representations of space within our culture. It is a representation layered within the representation of Second Life. Not ‘real’ and yet no longer just ‘virtual’, it mixes these together to create a third space, a meta metaverse that adds another layer to our experience of reality.

Only by entering this representational space within a representational space can we remove/distance ourselves from the first and look at it objectively.

Many thanks to all at Soup and Lovers Lane Studios for their support and kindly hosting this work.

Locations within the installation are arranged as follows, number 1-6 are webcam streams from ‘real’ world locations while 7 is the sea from Second Life:

1) The sky over Shizuoka Prefecture in front of Mt.Fuji, Japan: http://www.grandview413.jp/
2) The Grand Canyon, Arizona, America: http://www.zeitcam.com/webcam/grandcanyon
3) The Rockies, Banff, Canada: http://www.explorerockies.com/banff-webcam/
4) The Black Forest, Todtmoos in Germany: http://www.todtmoos.de/de/wetter/index.php
5) The plains in front of Kilimanjaro, Kenya, Africa: http://kenyawebcam.com/cam.pl?cam=kanzicam
6) The Pyramid of Cheops, Giza, Egypt: http://www.pyramidcam.com/
7) The Second Life sea.

Above: Video documentation of the performance I’m Garrett Lynch (IRL).

I’m Garrett Lynch (IRL) was performed for the second and last time on the 4th of August at 1:30pm SLT (9:30pm GMT) as part of the 2010 Odyssey Performance Art Festival running from the 31st July - 10th August 2010 at Odyssey Art and Performance Simu in Second Life. This version of the performance was significantly updated from the initial performance.

Above: Click image for a gallery of performance photos.

The performance continued ideas of the artist, identity and being from the initial performance and the works Between Saying and Doing and On Exactitude of Similitude while introducing suggestions of ‘place’ and its relation to these. The artist, wearing his now usual sandwich board, generated two hundred visually identical sandwich boards for participants to wear while all but taking control of the chat window to focus discussion on topics including identity, location, place, representation, original and copy, ‘reality’ and fiction. In addition, doppelgängers of the artists avatar and Google Map pins were created throughout the space. Each produced sounds from their location when they moved or interacted with the audience. The Google Map pins constantly floated skyward and disappeared emphasising the meaninglessness of place in a virtual world while the doppelgängers joined the spectators to watch the performance and followed both the artists and other avatars. The performance lasted approximately 29 minutes and terminated when all Google Map pins and doppelgängers had floated away. The remaining sandwich boards were left for visitors to take over the following days of the festival at Odyssey.

Twenty eight people participated in the performance in total including Alazi Sautereau, Apmel Goosson, Birkenkrahe Aya, Bruce Rathmullah, Chantal Harvey, Dekka Raymaker, dino Ferina, Drifter Rhode, Fau Ferdinand, Gliese Starsider, Jo Ellsmere, Jurassic Moonites, Kandinsky Beaumont, Karllos Decosta, Kikas Babenco, lizsolo Mathilde, Lollito Larkham, Marmaduke Arado, Maya Paris, Millimina Salamander, Naomi Greenberg, Nutski Newman, Penumbra Carter, Selavy Oh, Simotron Aquila, spirit Radikal, ush Underwood and Ze Moo. When each participant wore a sandwich board it changed to state “I’m not Garrett Lynch (IRL)” and they sent me an email in ‘real’ life to log their identity and location in the following format:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Push/197/58/24

Click on the link to launch the Second Life viewer and you will arrive at the installation.

The performance will take place at Odyssey Art and Performance Simu. Documentation of previous performances are online here.

For full details of the schedule for the complete festival, see the Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance weblog.

“presents public events programme: Biotechnology Art Exhibition, lectures, artists’ presentations, performances, Biotech Art Workshop, conference streams ‘Networks and Sustainability’ and ‘Art as Research’.”

If your in Riga, drop me an email / say hi. A full program of whats on is here.

Above: Video documentation of the performance I’m Garrett Lynch (IRL).

I’m Garrett Lynch (IRL) was performed for the first time on the 28th of May at 12pm SLT (8pm GMT) as part of 44 Hours of Cornucopia Momentum by Bendix Freutel (Eifachfilm Vacirca in Second Life) running from the 28th - 30th May 2010 at Odyssey Art and Performance Simu in Second Life. Performances were also simultaneously broadcast in Switzerland at the Kunst-Fenster Reigoldswil (Reigoldswil Art Window).

Above: Click image for a gallery of performance photos.

The performance continued ideas of the artist, identity and being from the works Between Saying and Doing and On Exactitude of Similitude. The artist, wearing his now usual sandwich board, generated two hundred visually identical sandwich boards for participants to wear while all but taking control of the chat window to focus discussion on topics including identity, location, representation, original and copy, ‘reality’ and fiction. The performance lasted approximately 23 minutes and the remaining sandwich boards were left for the duration of the event at Odyssey for visitors to take.

Eighteen people participated in the performance in total including Fau Ferdinand, Dancoyote Antonelli, Simotron Aquila, DanCoyote Alchemi, Juliet Claridge, Hinnerk Allen, Chantal Harvey, teixeira1976 Congrejo, Mab MacMoragh, Sun Lisle, Pei Twang, ush Underwood, Nicola Reinerman, Marmaduke Arado, Alexandra Xubersnak, LuciferSatan Genira and Deede Monday. When each participant wore a sandwich board it changed to state “I’m not Garrett Lynch (IRL)” and they sent me an email in ‘real’ life to log their identity and location in the following format:

Above: The performance location in Second Life.

Above: Kunst-Fenster Reigoldswil (Reigoldswil Art Window) in Switzerland.

A Flickr image gallery of all performances held during 44 Hours of Cornucopia Momentum can be seen here and a documentary of the event can be seen here.

You will need:

• An Acceleglove.
• Max/MSP (4 or 5), Jitter is not absolutely necessary depending on what you aim to build.
• Eclipse, Java IDE.

Resources:

• Max/MSP Development with Eclipse: http://compusition.com/web/articles/maxmsp-eclipse
• The Java section of the Cycling74 forum: http://www.cycling74.com/forums/forum.php?id=7
• The complete Java file and Max patch.

Above: Video documentation of the performance On Exactitude of Similitude (on Vimeo).

The second in a series of Second Life performances dealing with ideas of the artist, identity and being, On Exactitude of Similitude is a performance about a performance and its representation.

By positioning my Second Life avatar Garrett Lynch, a representation of my real life (RL) identity Garrett Lynch, in front of my own art work Between Saying and Doing in Second Life, itself a representation of my identity within a representation of a space, this performance continues to purposefully play on ideas of layering and framing between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘virtual’.

Above: Click image for a gallery of performance photos.

In addition to wearing the sandwich board worn during the first performance, my avatar wears a head device with a video stream of my RL face in real time, as if attempting to become me. Visually similar to the type of helmet worn by a deep sea diver or an astronaut my avatar attempts to submerge in the unknown. Simultaneously we see both ‘me’s’ through the helmets surface and on it’s surface. Is my avatar simply wearing a mask of me or is this a natural reflection? Does my avatar see me as I see my avatar?

Above: Video is streamed to a webpage on line, this is then captured in Second Life and mapped onto my avatars head device.

This mixed representation of me is however not me, it is still unquestionably an avatar and not even forcibly a better/closer representation of me, just a different, reconfigured and perhaps more complex layered assemblage of that representation. A copy of an original, a simulation of the ‘real’ or a map of the territory, no matter how faithful remains a copy and discussion of the level of similitude is inconsequential. Yet how and with what measure do we and can we without a suggestion of doubt precisely determine and know which is the copy and which the original?

Why does it disturb us…these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictions. (Borges, 1964)¹

This performance took place on 12/04/10 in Second Life at I AM Columbia Island (see image above) within the context of the exhibition Liminality: The Space Between Worlds at Antena in Chicago and in Second Life.

¹ Borges, J.L. (1964). Partial Magic in the Quixote. In Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, p 196, New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation.