Second Front's Ars Virtua Performance Photos by Marco Manray!

Here is Man Michinaga doing aerial surveillence for the Second Front Border Patrol. I am not sure if Mr. Manray has a pic of Man at the end wearing a cruise-missile on his head and threatening to nuke the whole Ars Virtua gallery to smitherines!
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

Hey Performance Art fans,

This is Wirxli Flimflam here. Marco Manray just gave us permission to post some of his photos of our performance! The video is also coming very soon... The performance for JC Fremont's installation was a smash-hit! We filled Ars Virtua to capacity and so be sure to return to this blog frequently as we should expect to hear some SL and RL press about the event very soon....and now, here are the rest of those photos:

Here is Wirxli Flimflam (yes that is me, the blogger of this posting)wearing a heli with my hair on fire (my head is above the heli's cockpit so you cannot see what I look like here). It looks like the heli-tar managed to shake of some sort of business executive and/or critic who seems desperate to hang onto the heli for dear life...lol! If you zoom in and look carefully, you will also see Tea Chenille wearing her spotlight in the bottom right and Great Escape peeking into the photo on the bottom left. The bald headed guy next to the avatar with the red shirt is the curator of Ars Virtua, Rubaiyat Shatner. I think you can see the back of JC Fremont's t-shirt as well but I (the blogger) am not positive it is indeed him.
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

Here is a different angle of roughly the same point in time early on in the performance. Tea has been foregrounded here but we can still see Great Escape and Man Michinaga in this pic...It has been confirmed with this pic, that was JC Fremont wearing that T-shirt...The viewer can detect his hat (or is it his hair?) a mile away ;-)
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

You can almost see my (Wirxli) flaming hair from this angle...I also forgot to mention that I (the blogger) found it interesting how the avatars are standing on an invisible floor...I do not think they are hovering in these above pix, are they? It looks like the floor has not rezzed yet ;-) I was too busy performing to pay attention to the quirks of the architectural space.
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

Here is an extreme close-up of Great Escape's snazzy outfit! His "skirt" or whatever it is has a lovely transparent texture to it. Great Escape's role in the performance was to walk around the perimeter of the gallery space and drop off refugee tents.
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.


...and here we can see those refugee tents created by Great Escape. We can also see Lizsolo Mathilde wearing a massive and intimidating panzer-esque tank! In this pic, you can also see the hovering Man Michinaga nearby JC Fremont's hair-hat in the background. And yes, there is ol' Wirxli again with his crop of flaming hair ;-) The stylish gal with the short-cropped black hair on the right is Chi5 Shenzhou. She is a good friend of Second Front...I am sure this blog will be posting much more about her in the near future (stay tuned).
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.


Well, this pic illustrates well the fact that the room was so full of avatars and objects, nothing would reveal its texture fast enough to always make our performance an obviously "aesthetic" experience. The barricades look like they are virtually made of wood in their unrendered and unadorned form...is ornament the highest form of crime in the high-art movement of Second Life? Heh heh! The visible avatars from Second Front in this pic from left to right are: Gazira Babeli (with her hanging and hovering noose), Tran Spire and Tea Chenille. That is possibly Man Michinaga hovering above with this back turned to the audience but one cannot be so sure.
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

Ahhh...the barricades have finally rendered! This photo must have been taken shortly before the end of the performance ;-) If you zoom in, you can possibly see Alise Iborg Zhaoying with her slender figure and spiked black hair. Alise was wearing an attack helicopter behind the barbed wire while interrogating and intimidating guests who felt too timid to cross the border into the gallery space. Speaking of zooms, we now have a closer look of Tran Spire and in the far right, Wirxli (yes, me again) running off with my barricade. I must have found some new victims to mow down! ;-) Tran Spire has an important role in this "phase two" of our performance as he inherits the er... "torch" of commandeering left behind by Man Michinaga.....the next pic is an intense close-up of Tran...
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

"RED ROVER! RED ROVER! BRING THE DETAINEES OVER AND MOW THEM DOWN!" This is the most intense close-up of Tran Spire's face that we have seen thus far! The rest of Second Front never imagined in their wildest dreams that the usually contemplative Tran would be capable of such raw emotion and rugged discipline! This must have been just at the point when Tran gave the orders to mow down the masses and reduce the rabble to avatar rubble! Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

Here is yet another detail of the barricades from Phase Two of the performance. On the left you will see Social Signaller, Pravin Pillay. He helped Wirxli Flimflam (yes, the blogger, third from left) rehearse the night before...One must assume that Pravin was not too traumatized from the post-rehearsal training session as this is compelling evidence indicating that he has returned for another helping of aesthetic abuse! Also featured in this picture is Tran Spire and Tea Chenille.
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.


Marco seemed to enjoy taking photos of our barricade phase the most. In this pic we have: Wirxli Flimflam, Gazira Babeli, Great Escape and behind him, Man Michinaga. It is in this pic that we see Man's personal product placement most clearly ;-)
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

This pic was taken minutes before Man Michinaga tried to nuke the whole gallery. This fire was set ablaze by one of our chief arsonists, Great Escape. I hope those refugee tents were fireproof ;-)
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

I have heard of "nosebleed seats" for big ticket sell-out concerts before but in SL, this concept is somewhat more surreal. There were so many audience members eager to watch our performance, the crowd spilled out of the gallery space and lined up above the gallery. Yes, only in SL can you line up to get in by hovering above the space rather than waiting outside the front door on the ground level. I guess this allows the overflow crowd to peek into the gallery using a eagle's eye view. Here is a good shot of some performance-art pilgrims traversing the terrain to get a better view of the action down below in the gallery...good thing Ars Virtua left the roof open!
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.

And for this last selected pic, we are showing Gazira Babeli and her good friend Chi5 Shenzhou at the afterparty held at Man Michinaga's penthouse suite. It looks like Gaz was feeling the time zone difference as she was hurling her guts out! Well, watcher her barf all over the place gave us an idea - and some foreshadowing for our next performance For Art's Birthday at the Western Front on Jan 17th from 4-6 PM PST...Stay tuned...
Photo by Marco Manray, 2007.