Live Stage: Cao Fei’s “RMB City” [NYC]
Cao Fei: RMB City :: February 29 – April 5, 2008 :: Opening: February 29; 6-8 pm :: Lombard-Freid Projects, 531 West 26th Street, 2nd floor, New York NY
“Is this your city?” asked the young man. “It’s yours.” The angel answered.
RMB City has been created by Cao Fei’s avatar China Tracy as an experimental utopian world for the 3D online virtual community of Second Life. Institutions and investors have been invited to buy buildings in RMB City and program events and activities within them where other Second Life users can participate. Thousands of young people in Asia and around the world are embracing Second Life as a “parallel universe” on the Internet.
RMB City will be the condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities with most of their characteristics; a series of new Chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, inter-permeative, laden with irony and suspicion, and extremely entertaining and pan-political. China’s current obsession with land development in all its intensity will be extended to Second Life. A rough hybrid of communism, socialism and capitalism, RMB City will be realized in a globalized digital sphere combining overabundant symbols of Chinese reality with cursory imaginings of the country’s future.
Lombard-Freid is providing China Tracy, as Chief Developer, with retail space for a New York RMB City leasing office and showroom. The public is invited to view an RMB City model, promotional videos, detailed RMB City photographs and go online via laptops providing real time links to RMB City under construction in Second Life.
The pure white RMB City Model proposes an ideal futuristic city in three dimensions for viewers outside of Second Life. China Tracy’s RMB City video projected onto a reflection pool showcases the myriad details of the metropolis – exposing layers of urban activity and the dense beauty of its architecture.
Also on view i.Mirror, Cao Fei’s quasi-documentary of China Tracy’s adventures in Second Life over a 6 month period premiered at the last Venice Biennale. i-Mirror the 3-part machinima of her Second Life experience inspired Cao Fei aka China Tracy to build RMB City.
Cao Fei’s recent exhibitions include: Brave New Worlds at the Walker Art Center, and Laughing In A Foreign Language at The Hayward Gallery, London. The 10th International Istanbul Biennial, the 52nd International Venice Biennale, the Lyon Biennial, China Power Station: Part 1, at the Serpentine Gallery, and China Power Station: Part II, at Astrup Fearley Museum of Modern Art. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo retrospective at Le Plateau, Paris.
Originally from Networked_Performance by
reBlogged by michael on Feb 27, 2008, 3:08PM
Universal Avatars Bestride Worlds
“A virtual character, or avatar, for all the virtual worlds in which people play is the goal of a joint project between IBM and Linden Lab. – The computer giant and the creator of Second Life are working on universal avatars that can travel between worlds.
The project aims to open up virtual worlds by introducing open tools that work with any online environment. The companies hope to boost interest in virtual worlds as well as make them easier to navigate. At the moment every virtual world requires a player or user to go through the process of creating an avatar that will act as their proxy in that online environment. Typically, an avatar created for one world, be it a game or a system like Second Life, cannot move between these different virtual spaces. The project started by IBM and Linden Lab aims to create a universal character creation system so people only have to create a digital double once.” Continue reading Universal Avatars Bestride Worlds, BBC News.
Originally from Networked_Performance by
reBlogged by michael on Oct 12, 2007, 3:53PM
Evolving in Brussels
On October 4th, a vernissage held concurrently in Second Life and in Brussels inaugurated that city’s first art space devoted entirely to art made in electronic media. Located in central Brussels, iMAL (Interactive Media Art Lab) Center for Digital Cultures and Technology boasts a group of workshops at the disposal of resident artists as well as more than 400 square meters of public space for events and exhibitions. The facility opened both its real and virtual doors with a three-evening series of events, including the dual celebrations, as well as audio and visual performances by French artists Pascal Baltazar and Mathieu Chamagne, who are known for their digital sound works created with custom gestual interfaces, and a demonstration of Danish artist Sven Konig’s instant video sampling software. Through October 14th, noted electronic music composer Kim Cascone is hosting a workshop titled ‘Genetic Laptop Music’ at iMAL. Each of the 15 participants in the project, equipped with a networked laptop running common audio software, perform a function within a composition process based on genetic selection. Audio is chosen from a ‘gene’ pool of open-source sound files, which are then recombined or ‘killed’ by participants. As the group of possible combinations narrows, a participatory audio work emerges. The workshop culminates with a public performance at the new iMAL space on October 14th. – William Hanley
http://www.imal.org/cascone_workshop/
Originally from Rhizome News
reBlogged by michael on Oct 11, 2007, 10:00PM
