<nettime> Two works (one new) in Second Life {AT} I AM Columbia Island

[Garrett Lynch <lists {AT} asquare.org>]

I’m currently showing performance documentation of Between Saying and  
Doing within the context of the exhibition Liminality: The Space  
Between Worlds at Antena (http://www.antenapilsen.com/current.html) in  
Chicago (RL) and in Second Life at I AM Columbia Island (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/I%20AM%20Columbia/136/189/22 
). The show runs until Saturday the 1st of May so if you can try to  
pop along to one location or the other.

The 'location' of the work in Second Life was yesterday (12/04/10)  
also the site of the second performance, On Exactitude of Similitude,  
in a series of Second Life performances dealing with ideas of the  
artist, identity and being and is now premiered and documented only  
within the Second Life part of the exhibition.


What follows is an extract of the statement from the new performance:

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 (http://www.asquare.org/works/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'.

In addition to wearing the placard 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?

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?

a+
gar
_________________
Garrett {AT} asquare.org
http://www.asquare.org/
http://www.asquare.org/networkresearch/


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