I unfortunately could not attend the interview, so I wasn’t sure what content to expect when I started watching the recording of the interview. First thing I noticed was that all the members seemed much older than I expected. When I watched the Second Front pieces previously, from the use of non-sequitur humor and avatar’s appearance, I assumed that they were in their 30s or 40s. I felt a dissonance between my prior image of the artists and the artists themselves.

During the interview many topics were discussed such as virtual identity, collaboration, extent of third-space performance art, and politics within the Second Life service. I think listening to the members discuss about how much they put thought into their alter-ego added a context to how I perceived the performance pieces. When I watched them first, I perceived characters as cold and somewhat scary, because they were virtual, moved in certain way, and could not speak audibly. But realizing the real people behind these performance, somehow made me more interested in virtual performance arts. Bibbe talked about how having an avatar that’s transformable in anyway gave her an endless opportunity to become any character – and connected that to her personal medical issue of having dissociative personality. I thought this was really interesting, because although most members of Second Life do not have such condition, how disembodied are we from our real life personality when we are in third space? Not only when we use an avatar, but when we engage in any internet art? The issue of etiquette and behavior on virtual space arises, and I think this is the other factor that adds to the unlimited potential of virtual space performance art. Bibbe also mentioned when the group created avatars based on real life people at a symposium during the bank heist – this is stealing physical identity of a real person into virtual space. A physical reality is leaking into the virtual world.

Another funny point that was brought up, was how one member said he squatted at an American Apparel building on Second Life, and pretended to be a worker there. I think another attraction of Second Life is that the physical location does not set any social boundary as it would in real life, and sometimes this seemingly out-of-location-context situations lets us enjoy the performances. It’s almost like making a real life glitch come true in virtual space, and with more audience participants anything is possible.

I was surprised by how much thought and time was put into the collaboration between Second Front ideas and performances, and seeing the people behind the avatars made it easier for me to imagine my own possibility to create performances in virtual space.

Link to Second Front Interview