Category: Research

It’s a perfect Second Front event if we crashed the system. (laughs)
– Bibbe Hansen (when Randall’s Adobe Connect crashed)

The conversation with Second Front gave me new perspective on the topic of Performance Art. It was quite exciting to put a face to their avatars as if it was the first time I was meeting an online friend over a Skype call.

When the host’s application crashes…

I once created an account on Second Life because my friends were playing but my account did not last for more than a day (preferred playing MMORPGs). Watching Second Front’s work made me realize that the avatars we have online is a performance in itself. We are performing that character when we create one, we take on the persona and create our personal narrative around it. In some ways we are really living a “second life” in that sense.

They talked about their characters as extensions of themselves, such as Bibbe’s portrayal of herself as a “comic character” that she aspired to be as a child. It was interesting to find out how Second Front came about. The topic on the first life and second life made me think about posthumanism.  Virtual worlds are starting to play more significant roles in our every day lives. Being a performer in the Second Life and in reality is something that blurs the boundaries between “Reality” and “Virtual Reality”. If they are performing both online and offline, are they being themselves on both platforms? Are we all performers online and offline?

Several questions on the role of the audience is also questioned during the interview and it made me wonder if performance art is audience-centric? How does such a tool work on a platform such as Second Life? How does the role of the audience change on a virtual platform?

This conversation has made me question a lot of aspects of a virtual platform that I have not previously thought about. I would really like to watch one of their performances live. Are they still recruiting members?

Second Front is the first performance group existing only in the virtual space of the game, Second Life. As the world gradually moves into a technological era, the definition of space becomes less “concrete”. In performance, the performers take on a role, they play pretend. This creation of a make-believe character is parallel to that of our use of social media. The media gives us the opportunity of explore the possibility of us having many “selves”.

In the video of the Grand Theft Avatar, I was quite alienated while watching the video because there was no dialogue going on (i.e. people talking to each other). The dialogue happened in the form of a text conversation. This made me very aware that I was watching a performance happening in a virtual space. It also reminded me of the conversations that I have had over the virtual space, most of which did not have a voice to it – just background music and sound effects.

Virtual space allows its users to make the impossible possible. There was a part in the video where the characters change their appearance and take on another role before they went to rob the bank. This happened in an instance and is something that would probably not happen within a few seconds in real life.

Reading the article and seeing the work that Second Front does makes me question the definition of space. Space is only there when you occupy it or when you know of the existence of that space. In Virtual Reality, the virtual space only exists because of the space in reality. It depends on reality to form a space and that could be said of space in reality. It is only real because the virtual exists. Thus, is the idea of a virtual “space” just an imagination? Or can we really exist in it?

The use of the game Second Life in the work that Second Front does can be seen as a form of remediation. They use a pre-existing space and narrative of Second Life to recreate a story that reflects that of real life and give life their characters.

Their key feature is openness: openness and plurality of visions and perspectives, quite blatant in this interview (where almost each one of them decided to give his/her answer to the same question); they are open about a wide range of interventions, from reenactment to improvisation to code performing; open about different ways of shaping their work for the art audience, from prints to video to live broadcasting.

– http://rhizome.org/community/38893/

I think the way Second Front uses the virtual space to create narratives and use it as a medium to explore reality is something that makes the viewers think. It blurs the line between reality and the virtual world. They have rehearsals before their performances and they invite viewers as audiences in the virtual world that they create. It is almost as though these online avatars lead very real lives in the virtual world.

In my opinion, there is an amazing opportunity for Virtual Reality (VR)
to stake its own territory but in order for VR to produce meaning that
breaks from the real and from past artistic social practices, and to
become a medium that produces singular works, the binary of the real vs
virtual must be dismantled. Only then, will we be able to look at VR not
as a simulation of the real, but as a simulation of itself.

– ALISE IBORG

Like what Alise Iborg says about the virtual world, it is important to know that the virtual world is not something that different from reality. Both the real and virtual exists because of the existence of the other. The virtual world lets us have the option to recreate ourselves in many versions and these characters in virtual reality are merely extensions of ourselves.

References
http://slfront.blogspot.sg/
http://rhizome.org/community/38893/

Between the years of 1996 – 2003, Jennifer Ringley started a webcam online that uploaded a snapshot of her life in the dorm every 15 minutes. She gained fame through the use of internet broadcasting. During an interview on David Letterman’s show, she talked about how she was inspired by a couple of the existing web broadcasting sites such as Fishcam and decided to do on based on her life as it was “more interesting to watch”. Jennicam then starting charging people for premium access to other webcams available in the house via Paypal in order to pay for bandwidth use in which she mentioned in an article that she is in $200,000 debt.

I was more interested in what made Jennifer take down Jennicam and the emotional effects the experiment had on her. Listening to an interview she made on Reply All podcast helped put things into perspective. I wondered how it was like to be a voyeur of the Jennicam. There was something about watching the mundane everyday life of someone that made me interested. Similar projects like Fishcam, did not interest me as much as Jennicam did.

The use of Jennicam showed how our actions on the virtual world can have an impact on real life. Jennifer in the Reply All podcast said that Jennicam had a negative impact on her love life as well as how she had to “develop a thick skin” as people started to condemn her after photos of the sex life was uploaded onto the site as well. Although she had control over the webcam and how she could have changed the position of the webcam in a way where it could not take photos of explicit parts of her life, she made it in a way that she could not control what the webcam upload.

“[I was exhausted] that I had to develop a thick skin. There are people I want to be able to connect with, I don’t want to distrust every stranger. I don’t want every good thing or bad thing to make me feel insensitive or proud. It became almost too thick of a skin.”
– Jennifer Ringley

Source Jennicam

Source fishcam.com

I looked up Fishcam and found Jennicam to be more appealing compared to a tank of fishes swimming about. Although the concept of surveillance is the same in both cameras, Jennicam had the presence of the human aspect. While watching Fishcam, I was waiting for people to walk into the corridor (but due to the time difference, it seems to be at night all the time. Whereas in Jennicam, I was browsing the net for pictures of her I could relate to, such as when she was looking into the mirror, eating, or flossing her teeth.

Jennicam also further emphasised how the responsible use of the internet is important. I could understand the stress that she had to face from all the backlash online and offline. I am impressed she continued to stay in the public eye for a period of 7 years. Her use of internet to showcase her private life is the same as how the modern day social media users showcase theirs. Maybe like all of us users of modern-day technology, Jennifer only wanted to look for people she could connect with.

Now we are all Jennicam.

— Anil Dash (@anildash) July 23, 2014

References
https://gizmodo.com/jennicam-why-the-first-lifecaster-disappeared-from-the-1697712996
https://soundcloud.com/replyall/
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37681006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AmIntaD5VE
http://digg.com/2015/reply-all-jennicam
https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0414jennicam-launches/
https://www.salon.com/2000/08/04/jennicam/

“I DID NOT FEEL SEPARATED I FELT VERY CLOSE EVEN THOUGH WE WERE THOUSANDS OF MILES APART AND I WAS SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE HERE I FELT CLOSE . . . ”

The World’s Longest Collaborative Sentence was a project by Douglas Davis in 1840. Participants of the project could take part by continuing the text that has been written by others. I struggled to comprehend the purpose of his project and wondered about the motivation behind the project. The sentences make no sense and I secretly wished for a period somewhere.

WHO ARE YOU? And you don’t have to worry about how to answer this question, either. At every step as you move through these words, images, and pages, you’ll find ways to tell not only me…but the entire World (Wide Web).

This project reminds me of improvised theatre. Someone starts with a line and another person continues in reply. There is no planning and setting of the plot. It continues to develop into a story just as how Davis’ Longest Collaborative Sentence works. With his project it is more difficult to control how participants interact with the platform. The website also talked about how the project was hacked with periods (for it to be a sentence, it cannot have periods).

I am more intrigued by the efforts preserve such a project. The website was a result of preservation efforts and this made me question the mortality of digital artworks. I used to think that digital artworks are immortal. It can live on forever on the World Wide Web. However, this project proves otherwise. Like physical artworks, digital artworks also have expiry dates. As technology continues to advance, current trends become obsolete and websites cease to exist once its “lease” expires.

How do we then restore digital artworks? Is it a need to restore these pieces considering the fact that these codes can be retrieved and taken from Open Sources? Who takes ownership for the restoration of a digital art? I think this would be an interesting subject to think about.

References
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jun/12/restoring-douglas-davis-collaborative-sentence/
http://www.dawnjaburris.info/mediatheory_f14/?p=575

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/Artport/DouglasDavis#mmi_83188

Jon Cates’ use of glitch art and his pursuit of “dirty media” in Bold3RRR can be seen as a reflection of society’. Glitch is a result of a computer graphic error and sometimes a notice that the computer has a problem, reminding users to fix the problem or resolve the glitch. It is often a frustrating experience for users to encounter a glitch. In gaming, glitches are often caused by internet connectivity issues or when the computer does not have enough memory to continue an activity. It is thus intriguing to watch Cates use glitching in his art. His narration does not make sense and in some way mimics that of a glitch. There is no flow or linear narrative to what he says.

In the interview with Jon Cates, he talked about how he viewed technology and its effect on humans. He compared the clean, pure, overall outlook of corporate branding and how the glitches make technologies “human”.

we live inna techno-social culture. these technologies are also socially performed, + that means that there are these performative aspects. for instance there is a corporate performance of cleanliness + purity. + then there is the performance of everyday life that we’re all doing all the time w/ all of our technologies. so, we’re making them human, in the sense that we are making them part of our lives.

Jon Cates has an interesting way of viewing technology and glitches. He sees technology as something that humans are making into “humans” by the frequent daily use of it. By taking glitches as a form of “mistake” made by technology, it also further humanises technology.

I am quite intrigued by the way Jon Cates uses glitches. His use of it tells us that technological mistakes can be transformed into art and be made something beautiful.

The 1980 Hole-In-Space installation redefined the meaning of “space” and changed the limitations of media. Dubbed as the “mother of all video chats”, people who saw the installation and “accidentally” became part of it asked if the people in the video call were actors on television. They have never seen a person on television react live to one another on a screen, across cities. It opened another dimension in the world they lived in.

The use of virtual space to connect to one another seemed very normal to a person in the modern world that most have taken this privilege for granted. It was hard to believe that the Internet was not as developed in the not-so-distant past. Emotions that could not be seen in the past over a telephone call, could now to projected through the screen. People could see each other live, through a screen as though they were speaking to the other side by side.

What then defines time and space? Time and space is known to be constant and cannot be distorted by man. However with the advancement in technology, new possibilities can now be explored and recreated through the virtual space. This brings about another question: can a virtual space be created physically? Is the third space only something that can only be formed through the combination of virtual and the actual?

References: