RMB City Code Award ceremony, has WangGuowei Wasp been found?
Last May 31, 2010 China Tracy, Mayor E3a Digital and a cluster of devoted RMBCity citizens met in SL for the Final Award Ceremony of its ‘Code’ treasure hunt.
We’ve been looking everywhere, wandered about the city and inspected any secret spots of the island but we couldn’t find you. Where are you, WangGuowei Wasp??? Reliable sources and undeniable clues tell us you’re still there, hiding from who knows what or whom, or maybe playing a merciless game to trick us all. RMB City’s celebrated storyteller HuFang Scribe had some interesting insights about the poet’s disappearance and he wove an absorbing discussion with Mayor E3a Digital about this mysterious story:
Here’s an extract of their SL chat:
[1:18] E3a Digital: I would like to know why Wangguowei’s ghost chose to come to RMB City
[1:19] Hufang Scribe: I hope it’s a kind of re-birth for him, who is considered as the last intellectual
[1:19] Hufang Scribe: at the beginning of Chinese modernity
[1:29] Hufang Scribe: mountain and water, i think RMB City captures the spirit of Chinese classical landscape painting, that’s probably one of the reasons why Wangguowei would like to stay here
[1:29] Hufang Scribe: water is a metaphor of floating energy
[1:30] E3a Digital: And the mountain?
[1:31] Hufang Scribe: and the mountain is the balance of this energy
[1:32] Hufang Scribe: they have to be togher, but urban is the space
[1:33] Hufang Scribe: where the high raised buildings are actually replacing the mountains
[1:34] Hufang Scribe: While the Chinese landscape painting, suggests an ideal state of life
[1:57] E3a Digital: Is Wanguowei a hero?
[1:59] Hufang Scribe: he doesn’t want to be , but the time pushed him to be, I think that’s one of the reasons why he committed suicide
[2:09] Hufang Scribe: did you notice these sheep?
[2:13] Hufang Scribe: they’re called Yugong
[2:13] Hufang Scribe: they can bring rain, and in WangGowei’s story, they become very sad after his disappearance
[2:16] gianna Yebut: what’s this tower and why are we here?
[2:17] Jia Nootan: perfect for dancing!
[2:20] Hufang Scribe: Maybe he stopped for a while on the L-shaped balcony of the CCTV Tower and sat at a solitary table, facing an empty chair, delicacies laid out before him but no one to share his wine with. Maybe he followed the Changjiang River as it flowed to the sea, looking for the most peaceful retreat this city could offer. Like a traveller in a traditional Chinese landscape painting, no bigger than a fingernail, wandering between river and mountains.
[2:23] E3a Digital: Hufang, try the Vodka. You can drink it.
2:27] Hufang Scribe: here the detective wants to get some clues from the boss of the hotel, because Wang Guowei lived nearby in the urban village
[2:27] E3a Digital: I now have a hangover.. 😉
[2:27] Hufang Scribe: yes, totally
[2:42] Hufang Scribe: rents have been raised so much within the urban developement, so the the urban village is the temporary urban solution for young immigrants, poets, musicians, artists as well
[2:44] Zilla Warrhol: this is my favorite spot
[2:44] Zilla Warrhol: its very mystical
[2:48] gianna Yebut: do you think wanguowei found some anwers here?
[2:52] Hufang Scribe: master Q helped the detective a lot to find Wangguowei’s traces…
[2:59] gianna Yebut: this is a field, and a grave at the same time…..
[2:59] gianna Yebut: ….for a while I thought Wangguowei was buried here…
[3:00] Hufang Scribe: no, it’s for Leman Brothers
[3:01] Drama Emor: who its leman?
[3:01] Drama Emor: from USA?
[3:01] Hufang Scribe: it’s the place to bury captialism
[3:02] gianna Yebut: or a place to bury any -ism
[3:03] Hufang Scribe: yes, and it’s also a self-sufficient farming system
[3:04] Hufang Scribe: this is the place where the detective met Marx and asked him some questions
[3:08] Jia Nootan: yeah, what is coming out from the bottle?
[3:08] gianna Yebut: this is where all the city’s dirt flows together
[3:09] Hufang Scribe: water again, here the detective met China Tracy and learnt what RMB city means
[3:09] China Tracy: 对不起,我可能无法告诉你更多的,因为第二人生没有记忆;但这个城市,始终在延伸,没有尽头,所有的一切都将飘向远方……
Sorry, I can’t tell you more, because this Second Life has no memory. This city continues to stretch, there is no end. Everything flows far far away….
[3:10] Zilla Warrhol: i wonder what it would be like to have no memory
[3:14] gianna Yebut: wow this place is beautiful!!!!
[3:14] Jia Nootan: if I were wangguowei, I would choose to live here
[3:14] Hufang Scribe: yes, but Wang Guowei has left, to where, we don’t know
[3:15] gianna Yebut: are there places like this in RL?
[3:15] Hufang Scribe: i don’t think so,maybe RMB City is the best context for his rebirth,
[3:17] Hufang Scribe: let’s enjoy here and think about Wang GUowei’s spirit
This is an open-end story, and like an oral tale whispered around a bonfire in times gone by, it still requires many tellers to be solved
Dear citizens, may WangGuowei’s spirit lights your way…
You have 3 days left…
…to find WanGuowei Wasp and solve RMB City Code mystery….
Final Prize Ceremony next Monday May 31, 2010: http://rmbcity.com/2010/05/rmb-city-code-prize-ceremony/
RMB City at 17th Biennale of Sydney
May 12 – August 1, 2010
The 17th Biennale of Sydney takes place in different venues around Sydney Harbour, including: Cockatoo Island, Pier 2/3, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanic Gardens and Artspace.
Together with other 120 works form 56 different artists, RMB City is exhibited in Cockatoo Island, a former prison and shipyard imbued with historical reminiscences and suggestions.
photos@William Chan
For more info: http://www.bos17.com/
To go Digital
The New Yorker
May 17, 2010
The New Yorker © 2010 Condé Nast Digital.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2010/05/24/cartoons_20100517#slide=2
Can you walk on the water?
What is this urge to challenge our natural and physical limitations?
A need of taming a way too scary and powerful nature?
The evolution of species?
Philosophy in its core meaning = ‘love of wisdom’?
An innate pulse for transgression, or an act of hubris against the God(s)?
An amazing video on ‘liquid mountaineering’ has been drawing the crowds in YouTube and made our hearts pound for a moment.
Through this new groundbreaking action sport, its pioneers claim to be able to actually run on the water, and as a proof of its authenticity they posted this video on YouTube where they actually run on the surface of a mountain lake.
The whole idea behind it is of course nothing but a very cunning advertising campaign promoting a new brand of waterproof sneakers.
A smart move playing on the natural instinct to overcome our limits and become our own God, like Jesus in the Gospels or any common avatars in SL.
New Upcoming Project: RMB City Cyber Nude
We invite you to take part in this new irreverent project and ask you to investigate your nakedness in SL.
Can you imagine this superb scene of many avatars flying naked over the city?
They laugh and dance, exhibiting their boldly huge breasts and deformed long tails. Some of them are falling into pieces, or walking around as bare skeletons, some of them are even losing their human shapes and resemble more the clouds in the sky or a gentle symphony in the air.
We invite you to ‘get naked’ beyond your physical limitations and to reincarnate your avatar into a new form of higher freedom.
…stay tuned for more info…
RMB City ‘sound’
How does RMB City sound?
According to this funny website: http://www.codeorgan.com/, it sounds like a C-minor Robot dance…well, not bad guys, but try and ask China Tracy if she thinks of herself as a mere mechanical automaton!!
Joking apart, check the website: it’s fun!
Circumstances beyond one’s control
Due to some maintenance works of their server, ‘motherland SL’ wasn’t accessible for a couple of days last week (http://status.secondlifegrid.net/).
Disregarding the most serious side effect of it (not having access to my second life), I focused on the annoying consequences this caused to our job, that is to say, as you all probably know, that we couldn’t host the RMB City Code event scheduled for last Thursday.
To some extent I thought this SL need for ‘regeneration’ and maintenance was almost the equivalent of the recent volcano eruption in the real world.
The ‘organism’ needed to be rebalanced.
It showed its omnipotence over the petty occurrences of everyday life.
And, last but not least, it managed to mess up daily routines and work.
After a while, though, I started to realize that, despite work inconveniences, this problem had provoked a much scarier incident: I, BETTER SAY MY AVATAR, WASN’T ALIVE…well, at least she wasn’t there, in the usual Second world where she used to live.
Did she get stuck in a grey zone?
Was she in a momentary virtual coma?
Would she ever come back to life again?
I was petrified and I followed the course of events with my heart in my mouth….’till I finally LOGGED IN and ‘we’ could sigh with relief.
Hugo Boss Prize
Guggenheim’s Video Announcement of THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2010:
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/press-room/news/3352