Whether represented by a veiled and blind Goddess, a four-leaf clover or a Wheel of Fortune, LUCK has obsessed and influenced people’s life since very remote times. Adapting Pascal’s wager on the existence of God to this more profane matter, you’d better believe in luck, and most of all never ever underrate bad luck, ‘cause that’s when your nice and sweet goddess turns into a monstrous gorgon, your precious clover turns out to be a mere Irish shamrock (no offence intended to St.Patrick!) and Fortune ‘overwhelms you with grief beyond bearing’ (Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy)!!!
What is Luck? How would you represent it? And most of all, do you consider yourself a ‘lucky artist’? these are the main questions asked to more than a hundred artists in a new publication by Fondazione Fotografia di Modena, Italy, on the occasion of the tenth edition of the city Philosophy Festival.
Artists responded in many different ways:

some even refused to send their contribution ‘to avoid bad luck’

This is Cao Fei’s answer:

“ARE YOU A LUCKY ARTIST?”
Skira Publishing House, 2010

Some excerpts from ‘Cao Fei’s Virtual Theater of Real Events’ by Yasmil Raymond:

” [...] What is immediately distinctive about Cao Fei’s practice is her notion of truth, which includes both a real and a virtual world, underlining an ambitious commitment to embrace the contradictions within reality and the imaginary. In the past decade, she has formulated encounters across great distances -social, political, and geographical- that challenge what is commonly understood as reality. The subjects in Cao’s virtual and real video productions, photographs, and environments maintain a sense of humility and emotional vulnerability that is primordially human despite the illusion of possessing supernatural qualities [...]

[...] In recent years, Cao has projected videos inside room-size environments accompanied by found objects that reinforce the context of the events depicted, transforming the typical projection room into a proscenium stage. Similarly, sound takes on metaphorical overtones in the videos. Rather than working with scripts, she consistently resorts to ambient sounds and lyrics in a number of works, constructing parallel narattives that hold together images and content through conceptual correlations [...]“

“Revolutionary Pleasure Area” and  “Second Life Tremors”

Original works by Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy) and Neville Mars

August 28, 2009
11 am, Beijing Time

RMB City 1 (220, 16, 65)

Please join China Tracy for the unveiling of her Revolutionary Pleasure Area: RMB City’s first sex parlor.

Also debuting will be an earth-shattering new work by architect Neville Mars, creating tremors all throughout Second Life.

To visit, teleport to:

RMB City 1 (220,16,65)
or

http://slurl.com/secondlife/RMB%20City%201/220/16/65/

New to Second Life?

To join Second Life and visit RMB City, register for a free account at https://join.secondlife.com/

Need Help? info@rmbcity.com

About RMB City:
www.rmbcity.com

Developer of RMB City: Cao Fei and Vitamin Creative Space
Facilitator: Uli Sigg
Public Presenter: Serpentine Gallery
Chief Engineer: Avatrian