Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Second Front in Exibart Magazine (Italy)!


Italian New Media art critic Domenico Quaranta just had his review of Second Front published in a print edition of Exibart Issue #38.

If can read Italian and want to zoom in on the above pic, click on this PDF link and scroll down to page 94.

Quaranta's review will be eventually published in an additional online
format at www.exibart.com (only in Italian).

Quaranta also published an in-depth online interview of Second Front for Rhizome.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

MARTYR SAUCE PERFORMANCE VIDEO!!!

GOOGLE VIDEO VERSION
If you cannot see the embedded video, click here.

YOUTUBE VERSION
If you cannot see the embedded video, click here.

If you cannot see either the Google or the YouTube version, this video is also available on Blip TV.

Special thanks to Second Front member Man Michinaga for taking the time to be both the Videographer and Editor while performing with the rest of us in realtime... a true martyr!

Monday, March 12, 2007

MARTYR SAUCE - Wirxli's Perspective...

Here is the best group shot I could capture while secretly fearing for my life and the lives of my performance art colleagues in the combat zone... Do not worry though, we were extremely brave and courageous in our efforts to promote world-peace...

VIDEO AND OTHER PERFORMANCE ARTISTS' PERSPECTIVES COMING SOON...

Hey performance art fans and conceptual art martyrs,

This is Wirxli Flimflam here and I just wanted to give you my personal perspective of what just happened a few hours ago...

Second Front has just finished performing our combat sim performance intervention in Second Life formally dubbed "Martyr Sauce". We have been scheming this performance behind the scenes for quite some time now (at least it seems this way when dealing with SL's sense of time).

Man Michinaga managed to record some video of the performance. I have not seen it yet but I am sure it will be online shortly once it has been edited. I wish I had some better pix of Man Michinaga and Tran Spire during the performance but I am sure they will blog their perspective soon enough.

I briefly summarized my personal perspective of the performance on my personal blog but I will summarize again...

Basically, 7 members of our group (unfortunately, Gazira Babeli could not attend due to her Italian time zone) went into the combat zones (yes, the places where you can be briefly annihiliated in Second Life) un-announced and with our peacenik gear in order to carry out our first official martyrdom operation. I spent most of my nine lives in the warzone trying to offer the warriors very potent and pacifying hits of SLSD (LSD in SL)...

If you browse through my hastily captured snapshots below, I think you will get a better idea of what we were up to...

Here I am with Tea Chenille (with zebra stripes) and directly in front of my protest sign, Alise Iborg Zhaoying (wearing butterfly wings)...I am glad to see that she has also brought her sheep with her for good luck! In fact, I think just about all members of Second Front ensured that they had at least one sheep (is "sheep" singular or plural?) with them to guide them through our noble and righteous martyrdom operation. We are truly the shepherds of innocence in this psychopathic world! ;-)

Here I am with Great Escape. He was the one that found the giant psychedelic flowers for us... yaaaaaaaay! :-D

On the left we can see yet another Second Front member, Lizsolo Mathilde. She provided us with the sheep. She had a whole flock of them which would explain why she appeared like Lil Bo Peep ;-) Oh, and in the center yours truly... The dude with the machete and the "Jason" mask was named Galactus and he changed his form several times to engage us. He seemed friendly enough - he only wanted to "slaughter the hippies" and nothing more ;-) I am glad to see he agreed to at least one hit of some SLSD (LSD in SL) before revving up his chainsaw ;-)

...actually before he got to the point of breaking out his chainsaw, Galactus liked to turn into a DoomDemon and cackle in this very nerve-shattering yet silky smooth deep voice... As a last resort, he tried to send us fleeing with his "sonic boom" which sounded to us like soothing ambient muzak....OM! When I first met him in the combat zone, one of his buddies politely asked us if we were "griefers"...heh heh...Us? Griefers? O, the irony! ;-) Fortunately, Great Escape managed to get Galactus into a very errr.... compromising position oving and was able to pacify him for a few seconds before Galactus managed to completely de-rez GE into a pile of gray-goo slag! I am not sure who the other person is in this pic but they are obviously also turning grayer by the minute!

I think I was able to capture the exact moment in this snapshot when Galactus managed to wrestle himself free from Great Escape's loving embrace...


...here is a better pic of Galactus as his satanic self...I think we had him sufficiently surrounded by the eternally throbbing ripples of unconditional love and peace!

...and here is a pic from our rehearsal earlier that evening at Ian Ah's refurbished and relocated screening lounge on Odyssey Island...

Peace,

Wirxli Flimflam

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Man in the interim...


Man here again...
Hopefully there will be some larger SL things, but in the dead of winter, we seem to be busy.

Well, after the crash of the first BitFactory, I'm still suck on Odyssey, living in Ian Ah's squat under Wirx's very nice office.. Was able to salvage enough from the old museum, and sell off cheap to get a thousand meters in Chindo, but there's nowhere to live there, so I'm sort of stuck.



It's been OK - Ian hasn't been kicking as much at night, but we ran out of wOOt Loops, so I'm looking through the dumpster for the moment - usually pretty slim pickings. Has Wirx been getting the last goodies, and taking them up to the office?

Sugar just told me that she nominated me for Wirxli's running for SL Presidency. Whether that means SL candidate for the US presidency (probably better than most out there), or presidency of SL, I know one thing is for sure. I know I'll be in the center seat after Wir takes a cap in his prim from some nOOb , so I had better get ready.

I know that Columbia Island is going to be mine in the next couple weeks, and that there will be no less than three BitFactory locations, but I guess this is an avatar's trial by fire. Can the curator of a museum wait through homelessness until the new location is built? I guess I'll have to.

But for now, I just wish Ian would let me use the damned portapotty. He's been in there for hours. Or is it just locked. Damn.