Last Saturday (Beijing Time), RMB City’s new mayor AlanLau Nirvana (RL: Alan Lau) gave his speech about his STIMULUS PACKAGE :

“The time for talk is over, the time for action is now”
The RMB City Stimulus Package

To the people of RMB City. Thank you for choosing me as your second Mayor. We have a huge task ahead of us. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. This isn’t some abstract debate. Thousands are losing their jobs, people are not spending, and our streets and buildings are deserted. Excess and greed have taken us here. There is a sapping of confidence across our land; fear that our decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
We must now act on a broad stimulus package to bring prosperity back to RMB City and its avatar citizens. We need to create a harmonious society, where new collaborative programs will stimulate our citizen’s minds, and where fast growth will be complemented by slow dreams.
The time for talk is over. The time for action is now! Let us learn our lesson: continue your excesses, not on borrowing and spending, but on dreams and ideas instead!
The stimulus package I am proposing has 3 parts: create jobs, offer aid to those who need it the most, and stimulate the minds of our fellow avatar citizens.

Job creation. The idea is simple: let’s put our citizens to work doing the work that RMB City needs to get done. I am calling on all bankers, hedge fund managers, and those who lost their jobs in the crisis, to come join me in constructing new monuments and recreating our ancestor’s grandeurs. Think big! And add to the already impressive cityscape of RMB City. Senators, I ask that you approve the funding to support this much-needed infrastructure spending.
Financial/housing aid. We need to offer immediate relief for struggling avatars under the crisis. Today, I signed a memorandum requesting the People’s Bank to give out Linden dollar to support those in need. This is part of the TARP program that I have outlined before in my campaign. Each citizen is entitled to L$10. We want you to go spend in SL, and stimulate the economy! In return, we ask that you tell us how you will spend the money, so that we understand your desires, hopes, and dreams, so we can plan for a better city in the future for you.
The housing bubble in SL has prevented many from building their own homes. Openspaces price has gone by 50%. And Mainland remains prohibitively expensive for many. We at RMB City welcome you to come set up your homes in People’s Neo Village, where you can take temporary refuge.

Mind stimulus. Our citizens’ minds are no less creative and are not yearning for less than when this crisis began. We need to keep our fellow citizens engaged, and let tourists see RMB City as SL’s leading creative and cultural hub. I am calling on SL’s best performers to come show your talent in our city. I propose to follow through on the plan laid out by our first Mayor, UliSigg Cisse, to host the “RMB City Super Avatar” contest. Come, and we will offer RMB City as your theatrical stage to show us your best to millions in SL.

Inaction is not an option that is acceptable to me and it’s certainly not acceptable to the people of RMB City – not on jobs, not on aid to those who need it, not on mind stimulus; not at this critical moment.
So I am calling on all Senators to rise to this moment. No plan is perfect. But the scale and the scope of this plan is the right one. Today, we begin in earnest the work of making sure the world we leave our next generation of avatars is just a little bit better than the one we inhibit today.
We have duties to ourselves, our city and the world; duties that are challenging but that define our character. This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
I am eager to work with all of you as we stand up to meet the challenge. That’s what the people of RMB City are looking for. That’s what I believe we can deliver to our avatar citizens, and the generation to come in the future. Thank you.

CONSTRUCTING RELATIONSHIPS

a conversation with Markus Miessen
People’s Monthly, Issue 1
People’s Monthly: What does RMB City mean to you?

Markus Miessen: It presents us with a parallel reality. Although it is a virtual space, I would not call it a virtual reality. As a space, it exists in real time, produced in the non-virtual world, through an interface that allows for a reality that transcends the physical boundaries that our everyday world consists of.

PM: In SL, the state of PLAY is the crucial drive/ right for avatars, instead of survival in a society, or gravity as the Earth’s law. What do you think about how this affects virtual architecture?

MM: I am not sure whether ‘play’ is the right term here. I agree that the fact that it is a parallel reality turns the in-between, the communication between the two realities, into something playful. An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself/herself or alter ego, a construct of the real, an interface and embodiment of the user. In this sense it is not too different from using a phone or sending an E-Mail. Now, one could argue that the difference lies in the memory of the system, the factor of growth, the factor of a history. Whereas most telephone conversations, SMS or E-Mails tend to be two-way conversations (between two individuals), SL builds up a visual and physical memory in a non-physical reality. It is not too different from building up a collection or an archive — of art, books, objects or dinge (“things”) of sorts — but this one can be accessed, altered, and interacted with in a completely different way. The question, however, is: what is really at stake here? I think that SL, if used smartly, like in your case, can become a test-bed for politics on various scales. On the other hand, if used as a simple game-tool — an interfacing facilitating the ‘state of play’ as you call it — it can easily become as banal as Facebook.

PM: What do you think is the biggest challenge to an SL architect? For real-life (RL) architects, how do essential parts of RL’s structure (such as physics, natural disasters, environmental problems, political concerns, and economic limitations) affect things like visual style, scale, and usage?

MM: Architecture is the constructing of relationships: spatial, social, and political. A wall can separate, but a wall can also unite. A single sentence, spoken out or typed into one’s keyboard can produce the same effects though. I wouldn’t necessarily distinguish between structures or architecture in reality and in SL, other than in terms of urgencies, scales of effect and economies. A disaster in SL is manageable; in the real world it is often not.

PM: What are the meanings of “to build/construct” and “building/construction” in SL?

MM: There are many different kinds and notions in regards to the act of building and construction, the most obvious one being the construction of physical structures that are both haptic and visible. There is also the construction and successive act of building up knowledge, constructing discourse, facilitating interfaces and the implementation of social spaces for physical and non-physical interaction. The only species of building that SL does not comply with is the one of haptic structures.

PM: What is unique about constructing a city, compared to an object or a building? If you can easily drag your building into your pocket (inventory), delete or remove it; or if you can fabricate your identity, education or lifestyle, how would this affect the rationality and order in city planning?

MM: I think a city cannot be consciously constructed. It is the long-term result of several professional, non-professional and everyday practices. The reading of a city, although the result of a multitude of historic and contemporary authors, is always personal. Therefore, there is never a singular New York, but countless New Yorks, there is never a picture-postcard of Beijing, but many diverse and conflicting narratives, sometimes hugely public, sometimes inherently private.

PM: In your opinion, how could SL architects inspire RL architects?

MM: Architects, urban planners and any other professionals and non-professionals that are engaged in spatial practice can learn from the interactive everyday qualities of SL. The interaction between individuals is essentially the driving force for the production of space. Any wall, any piece of physical matter places, tends to be a negotiation within a field of social and political forces.

PM: The last yet very basic question is: what do architecture and architects mean in RL nowadays?

MM: I would not make that distinction and I hope that, one day, your distinction becomes meaningless.

Markus Miessen

Architect, researcher and writer migrating between London, Berlin and Zurich. In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a platform for spatial strategy and critical cultural analysis. As an architect, Miessen is partner of the Berlin-based architectural firm nOffice. He is the author and editor of several books including Space of Uncertainty (Müller + Busmann, 2002), Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice (MIT Press, 2006), With Without – Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2007), and East Coast Europe (Sternberg Press, 2008). He has been teaching at the Architectural Association since 2004 and is the Director of its nomadic Winter School Middle East, which he initiated in Dubai. He has lectured widely, including at Columbia, MIT and the Berlage Institute, and is currently a Visiting Professor in Shiraz (Iran) and a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, elaborating on his thesis regarding the Uninvited Outsider.

www.studiomiessen.com
www.noffice.eu

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Portrait of Self-Exile（Part 1)

Opening: 4pm, 11th April (sat.) 2009
Location: the shop

Performance: Lee Kit, Knowles Eddy Knowles

You will encounter these art works in Portrait of Self-Exile（Part 1):
Pak Sheung Chuen: Lost in Torino
Duan Jianyu: On the path to silent, I meet a rabbit
Cao Fei: Nu (Anger)
Heman Chong: Star (Imploded)
Chu Yun: Black Label
Hu Xiangqian: Sun
Zhou Tao: Obstacle
Xu Tan: Keywords—Life, Existence, Survival
Zheng Guogu: Punishment of illegal land use
Koki Tanaka: How to Draw a Line On the Road

the shop
Address:B1-1503, Building 15, Jianwai SOHO,39 East 3rd-Ring Rd.,Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100022, China,Tel/Fax:0086-10-59004374
Email:
Reservationbeijing@vitamincreativespace.com
For Press hecong@vitamincreativespace.com
More on
vitamincreativespace.blogbus.com
www.vitamincreativespace.com

Portrait of Self-Exile begins loosely from a re-reading of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums; this thread is allowed its errantry, its errancy. Last summer British artist Sigrid Holmwood’s traveled to a hippie community in the Western United States and her resultant group of paintings manifests a shade of Dharma Bums existing in today’s world. At the same moment, Pak Sheung Chuen wandered the environs of Torino, Italy, trying to lose his bearings. Chu Yun had his friend bring up his nearly empty reserve bottle of “Black Label” whiskey from Shenzhen to Beijing, and the remaining contents were consumed. The normal course of daily events was detoured with subtle maneuvers by Koki Tanaka. Xu Tan’s Keywords school picked up the recurrent and the granted that lay in our ordinary language. For the duration of summer, Hu Xianqian’s naked body absorbed the Southern sun, darkening languidly on a dilapidated porch.
These and other occurrences may co-exist but take co-existence as a condition to test; not with a declaration but through everyday engagement. To impose exile on oneself is a manner of opening up another space, and searching for alternative ways of life, of measuring the various depths (or volumes, or scales) of alternatives. The individual who begins this gesture does so from his or her own position, thereby plotting a portrait.
Portrait of Self-Exile, loose and divergent, comes together, depositing a new geological layer on the shifting terrain of the shop, under Jianwai SOHO.

A reading event of the Chinese translation of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums will be arranged to take place in the shop in May, and is conducted by Yan Jun. Please check back for further news.

Note: Portrait of Self-Exile (Part 2) will be open at Vitamin in Guangzhou from June to September 2009.
There will be a book launch of 2 new books published by Vitamin in CIGE:
1. Battery City: A Post-Olympic Beijing Mini Marathon (Conducted by Hans Ulrich Obrist);
2. Master Q’s Guide to Virtual Feng Shui (a special project by Huang He for RMB City)

For Chinese Press Release, press here

记得刚开始注册Second Life的时候，拿着有限的Linden Dollar 当然马上走去装身，Second Life 里面的成衣店非常多，但是我走访了近30家店，都找不到我想要的东西：一个能面（能乐演员的面具）和淡蓝色的皮肤（ 穿什么衣服倒是其次）。在Second Life 里面， 皮肤如衣服，可以换。

很小的时候，忘了是什么机缘，我看过印度教几个主神如Shiva和Krishna的画像，他们都是一身蓝色皮肤，那非常美（尤其是Krishna一直是以青年男子形象出现）。对于蓝皮肤，包括历史学家人类学家近年都带来了不少现代解释：甲认为蓝皮肤是力量的象征，因为自然世界里的天空，海洋，河流，冰川都是套套叠叠深深浅浅的蓝（这种说法体现了古人观察事物的直观特色，其实就波长来说，蓝色和紫色波长最短，在大气层里面被散射，不像有些波长较长的可见色光，直达地面）；乙又说印度教各神常在高地修行，由于长期缺氧导致皮肤发蓝。。。我在一个网站看到有关蓝色皮肤的三百多种病理解释，但是最吸引我的是一个说法是银中毒，银中毒，真是“富贵病”。

以前曾经设想过做一个“造神系列”的项目，把不同的神的特征套在人的身上。Guy Ernest Dobord说基督教里神所应许的天家比地上的国更为重要，是一个“符号胜过实物、副本胜过原本、表象胜过现实、现象胜过本质”的好例子。所以把不少神的视觉形象／物质性抽出来，再强加在脆弱，最“肉”的人身上，是反其道而行了。不少神灵在历史上本来就是人，通过这个实验，希望可以通过刻画人－神－人这个圆，将历史的断层－叙述的剧变－做个切片检查。

在神的选择方面，除了黄大仙，天照大神等等，Krishna当然也是我心水，开始时考虑是否可以通过跟液体银的长期接触， 造成银中毒，再把左手臂变蓝（科学达人不要笑我），最后发现失败。听说美国一老人以服用液体／胶质银补身，导致全身变成灰蓝色－这是个不可逆转的生理变化。这样啊，唯有在Second Life暂时过过瘾。。。我去过SL几家有皮肤贩卖的商店，在选购过程中惊异于Second Life里面人们对皮肤想像力的缺乏，看来看去都是跟现实的黑白黄人种翻版，也有别的如红蓝绿，但是不属于主流选择。后来别人送了我这个不特别出色的蓝，看来最好自己开发个特别的蓝色，然后注册，好像克莱恩那样。以后你要用，需要问过我，哈哈。

RMB City interviewded its first mayor UliSigg Cisse, see what the mayor and also RMB City’s facilitator say about RMB City and being a mayor of it….

1.Why are you interested in RMB City? What attracts you about it?

Because I will learn. New concept, new technology, breaking new ground for old boring questions like what is the piece, where does it start, where does it end, what is an exhibition, what is a collectible item. Pushing the limits is my game. And I am the facilitator…. And besides I really like to work with Cao Fei and Zhang Wei: they are mostly fearless people.

2. Why did you decide to collect this particular virtual building (“People’s Palace”)? What does it mean to you?

If I collect I have to think big. It is the heart.

3. What ‘s the differences between this piece and other pieces in your contemporary art collection? Does it have a special meaning or function in your Chinese art collection system?

It is meant to extend the scope of my collection into new space – virtual and real at the same time, collecting a process, bits, and real pieces. If it will not [extend the scope], and if it will not make me sweat, I will be upset. Actually I perceive myself more a researcher who is just fortunate to have means to acquire some results of his research.

4. RMB City is an open project, full of possibilities and creativity. It welcomes the active involvement of art institutions and collectors. Are you planning to be involved in this project, and if so, how?

I already am. I am the Facilitator. Nobody knows what that means, it is so virtual, that we really like it… I am giving some ideas and some support to make it possible, that’s all.

5. How do you feel that the building you collected is going to serve as the RMB City Hall? As the City Hall of a virtual city, what function do you think it should have?

I like this idea even though it limits my own possibilities with my building. Which functions? A parking lot, an avatar-bar to get drunk in and envision new worlds, a mailbox to drop these visions… No hierarchy, no rules.

6. If you serve as the mayor of RMB City, how will you preside over the city’s development direction?

I would certainly look like an excellent mayor, but I am born lazy. And the first thing I would have to introduce is hierarchy and rules: eliminate enemies threatening RMB City. Define cultural values, determine bad artists and bad art, avoid central government intervention, deflect Linden-$ crisis. Of course, also open up borders, go green and elect RMB super girl. Attract the best avatarminds. Do many competitions! These are any mayor’s secrets.

7. What do you think is the relationship between this virtual city and contemporary Chinese cities?

Maybe none – but maybe we will be surprised and RMB City will be a role model. It will very much depend on the artist, the people collecting the buildings, and visitors. Will they still maintain their limitations ingrained by lifelong reality? Will they be able to think without boundaries? Then something new and useful for real Chinese cities may arise.

8. What is your concept of a Utopian city?

sinoswisszurichbeijing – situated in the alps but with Chinese food, and no avatar with more than one vote – that would leave nothing to be desired.

Last time we already revealed that China Tracy that showed up at the “marathon-dialogue” that take place in RMB City, was actually five people who are:

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).

Let’s try to match the following texts which are the transcripts of the Marathon discourse on March 20, 2009 (the day of RMB’s installation in Serpentin Gallery) with the above-metioned people who played the role China Tracy on that day.
(Note: all the lines said by “You” are actually spoken by China Tracy)

[3:16] You: what you have seen here is part of the outcome after the opening of RMB City
[3:16] Hansulrichobrist Magic: as Dieter Roth said EVERYTHING the magazine of everything
[3:16] You: there have been different kind of cultural activities which are shaping the new life in rmb city

[3:19] You: daily life becomes the way that revolution exists
[3:19] Hansulrichobrist Magic: Lyotard did les Immateriaux after that he wanted to do a show on Resistance it remained unrealised
[3:19] Hansulrichobrist Magic: RESISTANCE IN SECOND LIFE
[3:19] JuliaPeytonJones Popstar: Revolve daily life
[3:20] Hansulrichobrist Magic: can Second Life be Resistance?
[3:20] You: for a revolutionary means of transport, do you want to try to fly?

3:25] Hansulrichobrist Magic: China Tracy are we a community
[3:26] Hansulrichobrist Magic: production of communicy
[3:26] Hansulrichobrist Magic: community production reality production
[3:26] Hansulrichobrist Magic: China Tracy did your identity change
[3:26] You: Don’t do things that I would not do
[3:26] Hansulrichobrist Magic: What does freedom mean
[
[4:04] Hansulrichobrist Magic: what is knowledge
[4:04] You: fabricated experience.
[4:04] Hansulrichobrist Magic: is RMB City art for all?
[4:05] You: it seems like it is…
[4:05] Hansulrichobrist Magic: what is RMB Citys relaton to the market?
[4:05] Hansulrichobrist Magic: it feels urgent that we have decommodified institutions
[4:05] Hansulrichobrist Magic: can RMB City be a decommodified CITY
[4:05] You: it doesn’t seem like it makes a lot of money..

3:55] You: we are chinese, we don’t talk about political things — we just do it.
[3:56] Hansulrichobrist Magic: anything else you would like to say
[3:56] Hansulrichobrist Magic: where is criticality to be found today

[3:56] Hansulrichobrist Magic: Warhol or Beuys?
[3:56] You: To marry Hans Ulrich!
[3:56] Steve Memotech is Online
[3:56] You: marry to Hans Ulrich in 3rd live
[3:57] You: life

(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

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.