Hazardous: Second Front watches "Strange Culture"

Monday afternoon screening attendees, from left-to-right: Gazira Babeli, Wirxli Flimflam, Tran Spire, Great Escape and Lizsolo Mathilde.

This week we were invited to attend the premiere of "Strange Culture", an independent film by Lynn Hershman which discusses the infamous case of the arrest and pending trial of Steve Kurtz from the Critical Art Ensemble. The film will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival this week and has the distinction of being the first-ever feature film shown in Second Life.

It seemed altogether appropriate to have the first-ever performance art group in Second Life present at opening night (afternoon). We decided to don hazmat suits and gas masks to show our support for the defense in the ongoing Kurtz case.



Wednesday afternoon screening attendees: Alise lborg Zhaoying (left) and Man Michinaga (right)

(Tea Chenille was unable to attend due to some RL obligations)

Second Front was unusually subdued in its urge to create a large-scale performance. We sat quietly and watched the film. The only sound besides the movie soundtrack was the constant clicking of the Second Life cameras as we documented this historic event.


Watching a movie in Second Life was totally weird. When you get to the movie theater, you hit the play movie control on your SL window. We're all watching the same film, but a different times! That seems like the most significant difference from a traditional cinema.

So, we all sat (mostly) in silence while the movie played, each in our own avatar bubble-world. All the involuntary sighs, gasps and laughter during films don't happen in Second Life. And because we were all watching different points in the movie, there weren't common areas for response anyways.

I decided to have a cocktail and was sipping on my rum punch in the back row until I was asked to put it away because it was bothering the other movie-goers. Just like real life!

After the movie, we got up and moved around, chatting to one another. Steve Kurtz was on an audio feed answering questions from the avatars. That was great. Thanks, Steve!

During the Q&A, we did some mini-performances. Here, Great Escape acts as a corpse with buzzing flies. Kurtz made a comment at one point about the hazmat suits and McDonalds logos in amusement.
After the Q&A session on Monday's show, Gazira Babeli dropped questions and logos from the sky while Great Escape demonstrated his love of fire.