Video link:How to use your Robot in SL
China Tracy @ Modern Weekly
China Tracy (RL: Cao Fei)has just finished a photo shoot for Modern Weekly. In these photos, China Tracy are wrapped by virtual outfits inspired by great fashion brands including Viktor & Rolf and Alexander McQueen.
fashion reference: Hussein Chalayan and Viktor & Rolf
Before the virtual ourfits were made, the data of China Tracy’s body figure was sent to Sine Wave, a Second Life builder who would make the virtual outfits that would be later fitted on China Tracy. It does sound more or less like the process of having your suit tailor-made, but think about when texture is eliminated from fashion, what is the fashion? How is the our hunger for feeling – that is functioned with your skin – going to be solved? Is that just like what Roland Barthes exchanges between signs and fashion…on a flat computer screen?
RMB City “Interview Marathon” in Real Life, Serpentine Gallery
Hans Ulrich Obrist (SL: HansUlrichObrist Magic) and Julia Peyton-Jones (SL: JuliaPeytonJones Popstar), photographed hard at work interviewing China Tracy (RL: ?) during the RMB City Interview Marathon on Friday, March 20. Here they are in the new RMB City installation in Serpentine Gallery, in Real Life. If only we could sip HansUlrichObrist Magic’s coffee via wireless virtual worlds, I wonder what it would taste like?
New Value from our Mayor!
It’s a glorious occasion whenever Mayor UliSigg Cisse contributes a new value to RMB City – his latest is:
“In all endeavors, search for the quantum leap!”
Please take this to heart, dear RMB Citizens – we hope to all be quantum-leaping soon. Also, don’t forget to add your own “citizen values” in the comments, or by emailing to: info@rmbcity.com…
Will the real China Tracy please stand up?
For the experimental Interview Marathon in RMB City on March 20, the avatar of China Tracy jogged, walked, and flew alongside HansUlrichObrist Magic and JuliaPeytonJones Popstar… but who was China Tracy, really? It’s finally time to reveal the truth.
The original interview concept:
To fully utilize the possibilities of an interview in Second Life, and to touch on the issues of virtual representation vs. reality that RMB City project seeks to explore, the concept is a sort of “Interview Marathon” — or rather a “relay race”. The avatars HansUlrichObrist Magic and JuliaPeytonJones Popstar will be chatting with the avatar China Tracy, but who knows who is really behind the keyboard? For this event, China Tracy will temporarily become “the People’s Avatar”, a psychic medium channeling multiple voices and visions. In the space of 1 hour, several participants will be “playing” China Tracy (the full list will be revealed after the performance), passing the digital mask of her avatar on just as an Olympic Torch is passed from one runner’s hand to the next. The resulting dialogue may form a sort of exquisite corpse, with China Tracy the literal (virtual?) body, and challenge conceptions of identity, performance, and narrative. The event will be documented as an episode of RMB-TV, a new conceptual platform to examine RMB City as theatrical stage. In a world where nothing is real, isn’t everyone an imposter?
So, without further ado, the speakers channeled by China Tracy’s avatar were…
Hu Fang (SL: HuFang Scribe, creative advisor to RMB City)
Uli Sigg (SL: UliSigg Cisse, 1st Mayor of RMB City)
Alan Lau (friend of RMB City, may hold “high office” in RMB City soon…)
Mian Mian (SL: MianMian Sorbet, writer and artist of the “Love Letter to an Avatar” project)
Huang He (SL: queenshoe Voom, aka “Master Q,” RMB City’s own Feng Shui Master)
It was a bit of a crazy experience, juggling phones, keyboards, and timezones from Paris to Hong Kong, but in the end, an amazing interaction. Many many thanks to all the participants — it wouldn’t have been such a fantastic, surreal dialogue without you!
Full interview transcript coming soon…
No Sweat! The marathon at RMB City
(RMB City News) Yeatserday (March 20), as a special SL event for RMB City’s reinstallation in Serpentine Gallery, London, from 10am to 11am (London Time), China Tracy (RL: Cao Fei/ ???)， JuliaPeytonJones Popstar (RL: Julia Peyton Jones )and HansUlrichObrist Magic (RL: Hans Ulrich Obrist ) had an interesting dialogue which took form of a marathon in RMB City.
The marathon started at the “Bird’s Nest” (People’s Park) and then China Tracy decided to bring the two marathon-ers to RMB City’s People’s Entertainment Television (yes, the CCTV hanging in the air), the event finally wrapped up at one of Huang He’s virtual feng shui devices – the Gourd of Wood, where three tree-shaped green beams appear when being activated by three people. China Tracy, JuliaPeytonJones Popsta and HansUlrichObrist Magic all enjoyed the “wood element qi” which brings kindness and peace.
RMB City team has extracted some inspiring discourse among the three yesterday.
[3:18] JuliaPeytonJones Popstar: Revolution is everything!
[3:19] China Tracy: infiltration is better
[3:19] JuliaPeytonJones Popstar: It’s part of the everyday here and always
[3:19] Hansulrichobrist Magic: Beuys said La Rivolutzione siamo noi We are the Revolution does China Tracy agree
[3:19] JuliaPeytonJones Popstar: Subversion
[3:19] JuliaPeytonJones Popstar: Subversion the best
[3:19] Hansulrichobrist Magic: or Resistance
[3:27] Hansulrichobrist Magic: what is a nano second on second life
[3:27] Hansulrichobrist Magic: nano second life
[3:27] Hansulrichobrist Magic: ever nano second ever life
[3:27] China Tracy: because that would represent a reduction of freedom
Want to learn more about what happened and what words bounced out at the verbal/virtual marathon ? Stay tuned to the RMB City blog
Odyssey
Just revisited the site Odyssey (Odyssey 66, 225, 100) – “a simulator in Second Life dedicated to art and performance”, I again saw the crazy lump of different images which repeat themselves and overlap and collage with each other. There was one point that I could not even see myself (I mean, my avatar) in the dazzling colorful… thing. It maybe just another eyeblinding piece but also be a metaphor of the media world filled with explosions of information (visual, audio, textual…) and hyperreality.
RMB City’s reinstallation at Serpentine Gallery!!
Opening Date: 20th March, 2009
Venue: (Real Life) Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London
(Second Life) http://slurl.com/secondlife/RMB%20City%201/153/32/126/
Developed by Chinese artist Cao Fei and Vitamin Creative Space, RMB City is a utopia/ heterotopias constructed in the virtual platform “Second Life”. Through sampling and collaging various Chinese cities and exchanging symbols in the real and virtual worlds, RMB City attempts to build another reality, or crystal images that break away from simple dualisms between “virtual and real”, “East and West”…
RMB City just celebrated its official opening in January 2009 and will be reinstalled in Serpentine Gallery starting from 20th March 2009. Through videos and computer portals to RMB City, this reinstallation connects the virtual fantasia with the public space.
At 10-11am (London time), 20th March, China Tracy (RL: Cao Fei) will have a dialogue with Second Life avatars of Julia Peyton Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist in People’s Park (http://slurl.com/secondlife/RMB%20City%203/93/78/23) in RMB City. A mind-relay in the virtual realm is highly anticipated.
See you there.
For more info: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/05/cao_fei_rmb_city.html
Visit RMB City:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/RMB%20City%201/153/32/126/
www.rmbcity.com
Join Second Life: www.secondlife.com
Developer of RMB City: Cao Fei and Vitamin Creative Space
Facilitator: Uli Sigg
Public Presenter: Serpentine Gallery
Chief Engineer: Avatrian
RMB shovels and helmets in The New York Times
the shop, located in a basement-level storefront of the Beijing CBD area was finally spotted by the New York Times. Our cute RMB shovels and helmets showed their faces ..
Link of the report:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/travel/15foraging.html
Here is the full report.
ASIA-PACIFIC ISSUE | FORAGING
Store Review: The Shop in Beijing
Published: March 15, 2009
Is China’s red-hot contemporary art market finally cooling its jets? That hardly seems to matter if a seven-figure Yue Minjun or Zhang Xiaogang was never in your budget.
But for those whose predilection for experimental Chinese art has always exceeded the depths of their pocketbooks, there’s the Shop, which opened last November in the Jianwai SOHO office and retail complex in Beijing.
Not quite a store, not quite a gallery, not quite a think tank — yet somehow all of the above — the concept-heavy outlet is a project of Vitamin Creative Space, an alternative-art center founded in Guangzhou in 2002. Occupying a basement-level storefront and outfitted with blocky, tiled benches evoking a giant Tetris game, it was conceived as a “situation for understanding the relationship between art practice and daily practice,” said Hu Fang, who co-founded Vitamin with Zhang Wei, a fellow critic-curator.
What that means to the casual collector is a rotating selection of objects tied to Vitamin’s programs. So if you missed the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s New Year’s Eve “interview marathon” with the likes of the architect Ma Yansong and the artist Cao Fei, you could still buy the Zaha Hadid-esque fish tank that Mr. Ma brought for the event (25,000 yuan, about $3,570 at 7 yuan to the dollar) and shovels and signed helmets (1,500 yuan and 300 yuan), above, from the “ground-breaking” of Ms. Cao’s virtual RMB City project on www.secondlife.com.
To be sure, it’s not standard gift-shop fare. But “while people might get confused,” Mr. Hu said, “we think they’ll get used to it and want to come back again.”
The Shop, B1-1503, Building 15, Jianwai SOHO, 39 East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District; (86-10) 5900-4374; www.vitamincreativespace.com.
Experiments in RL/SL Video: Kinshasa 2.0
One evening in Real Life Bangkok, a Thai filmmaker friend of mine mentioned this project, a short, mixed-reality documentary about contemporary Congolese politics and human connection. It’s called “Kinshasa 2.0” and was directed by Teboho Edkins as part of a project investigating concepts of democracy. Since I’ve been working on several projects relating obliquely to Africa in First Life, and my official job is in Second Life, I couldn’t wait to watch it…
(Photo by “Youin3D”, shooting album)
美轮明宏
黑玫瑰公寓
一直非常喜欢日本电影，可能是中日两国有些文化渊源。
从朋友那边借来了日本导演深作欣二的六十年代作品黑玫瑰公寓（1969，Black Rose Mansion），朋友说我常常一点小事就要生要死的戏剧化作风大有电影里面黑玫瑰之风范云云。片中的黑玫瑰并非香港电影里的女侠盗，却是神秘又吸引的歌女，歌女手中一朵黑玫瑰是她的动情银针，当歌女遇到真爱，玫瑰会由黑转红，最后故事以悲剧告终（不透露剧情了）。
电影的Femme Fatale老土情节对我来说不是卖点，倒是电影的坎普氛围和“妖气冲天”地反串女主角美轮明宏才是戏中亮点。美轮明宏原名丸山明宏，生于1935年，17岁作为歌手出道，翻唱Edith Paif 等歌手的法国香颂，丸山有种中性美，而且有种诡异的气质，连唯美至死的三岛由纪夫也忍不住要赞丸山为天人。丸山的妖气不单迷到了三岛，也促使鬼才寺山修司以其话剧团天井桟敷之名度身定做的《青森県のせむし男》和《毛皮のマリー》。 丸山在某年觉得受到感召， 脑海中出现“美轮”二字，继而把自己的名字改为美轮明宏。近年丸山仍旧活跃艺能界，包括为宫崎峻的哈尔移动城堡里的荒野女巫配音， 其招牌造型是其一把染成鲜黄色（真是黄色，不是金色）的秀发，看上去大有草间弥生婆婆的风范。
看到丸山的青春从盛到衰，看到他一头色彩鲜艳，camp爆的头发，他无论在台上台下都一样脸谱化的作风，然后想想他因三岛切腹自尽而一夜白发的传言，就觉得一堆堆华丽的符号的场景，在他上面劈头劈脑的倾泻而下，最后还是剩下他独自在一间放满各色假发的房间，唱着久违的香颂。
年轻时的丸山明宏，确实有些三岛的小说人物的风格。
现在的美轮明宏
美轮和三岛
Looking at RMB City from the others’ eyes
“In January 2009, a group of 17 students in an undergraduate photo class at New
York University visited RMB City and made photographs of the things they saw.
The students were given the assignment by their instructor, Christopher
Phillips, who is the curator at the International Center of Photography in New
York. He got the idea for the assignment when he accidentally ran into China
Tracy (RL: Cao Fei) while he was exploring RMB City not long after it opened to the
public in January. It was China Tracy who suggested sending the NYU students to
RMB City on a group photo expedition.
Most of the students had never visited Second Life before, and they were
excited by all of the possibilities this virtual world offers. They all learned
to fly without too much difficulty, and many of their most interesting photos
were made while zooming though the air around RMB City. Many of the
students chatted with the other visitors to RMB City that they met. One student took part
in a wedding of two avatars that was being held in RMB City. One of the sexier
female avatars even received an invitation to teleport to a sex club! Many of
the students are continuing to explore RMB City and the countless other aspects
of Second Life.”
More pictures coming up…
Thanks!! All Lovely Vitamin members!!
Just saw this lovely Vitamin blog post which juxtaposes People’s Slum and the similar housings in Guangzhou.
哀悼格里耶 （Alain Robbe-Grillet，1922－2008）
格里耶于上月18号逝世，虽然其享年85，算是笑丧。但是还是有些戚戚然。
第一次知道格里耶“是当年（“当年”的意思是，那时我看的是录像带，不是vcd更没有dvd）在朋友家中看了阿伦雷奈的去年在马伦巴（L’Annee Derniere a Marienbad，1961）， 那时看完电影就想看看原文， 知道作者是法国新小说创始人格里耶。真正看到格里耶的作品是四五年前，那时侯跟一个深圳的劳工组织工作，我在一个为工人而设的图书馆里，在一堆堆廉价，颜色鲜烈的杂志之间，看到了格里耶比较早期的作品橡皮。前年某出版社出版了一套格里耶的作品，就又买了好几本。
格里耶死后就开始有讨论，讨论他能不能上文学殿堂。这些死后功名我是不太感兴趣，我最喜欢的三岛由纪夫都没有拿过诺贝尔奖啦。媒体报道说格里耶“因为不理解这个世界，所以动笔写下来。然而写作不断，他对世界却越来越不理解”，我觉得很多人写作都有这样一个过程，由于受到几千年来东西哲学的 “求真” 包袱，老想在文字里面理清一些什么，然后找出个形而上的拐杖，慢慢的，写着写着，就发现离开所谓的真（如果有的话）， 所谓的世界越来越远，笔下的已经是另一个现实。好像入梦以后，在另一个梦里醒过来。
廖伟棠很久以前在他的博客上引用了瓦雷里的一句诗：“人体最深刻的地方是皮肤”。当我看到格里耶白发苍苍，皱纹满面，不禁黯然。那些在他小说里让人迷路的女孩，凶杀，石头路，青蛙。。。都敌不过我们一开始就想翻阅的东西，当我们开始的时候，原因已经翻了一面，变成结果了。德里达去世的时候一位朋友哭了，那时侯不明白，现在是有点知道了。通过文字，音乐或者其它，我们试图把自己跟他人连结起来，试图造就我们的，或者他们的，身后的不朽，这种友爱的关系开始的时候就注定被“没有回应” － 德里达在别了，列维纳斯提到的，列维纳斯对死亡的解释。
RMB City at H Box!!
We are going to show our RMB City videos in H Box (not X Box)!!
“H BOX is an innovative, roaming screening hall, presenting major new video commissions by eight international artists. Designed by architect Didier Fiuza Faustino, the unique structure hosts a rotating, diverse programme of videos by Alice Anderson, Yael Bartana, Sebastián Díaz-Morales, Dora García, Judit Kúrtag, Valérie Mréjen, Shahryar Nashat, and Su-Mei Tse.
Consisting of two entirely collapsible modules constructed of aluminum and Perspex, H BOX can be assembled, disassembled and transported as required. It is designed to travel the world, in search of new audiences. Each year, as H BOX tours between museums internationally, four new artists will join the programme as four others give up their place. The itinerant nature of the structure and the commissions shown within it highlight the exciting fluidity of video, a medium that continues to reshape the twenty-first century.
H BOX is produced by Hermès. Benjamin Weil, executive director of Artists Space, New York, is the artistic director of the project. H BOX was first unveiled at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in November 2007 and has traveled to MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon, Spain, and MUDAM, Luxembourg. Following its presentation at Tate Modern H BOX will travel to the Yokohama Triennale in Yokohama, Japan.”
