On February 11th, 2007 Second Front performed
Spawn of the Surreal at the
NMConnect Campus (New Media Campus) as part of the Chaos festival program organized by
In Kenzo.
Spawn of the Surreal was a three-act performance with the first act comprising of a spectacle of avatar B-flick horror as members of our audience, unbeknownst to them at the time, mutated into Cubist-like configurations as they sat in the scripted staircase chairs that were part of our installation.
Second Front's Alise Iborg observes audience members deforming.The idea of mutating avatars came to us when one of our members,
Gazira Babeli, reported that one of her code scripts was behaving badly and deforming her avatars. Second Front took this as an opportunity to interrogate the idea of beauty and perfection in avatar beings since it seems that human simulation in Second Life and generally, in other virtual worlds (ie: multiplayer online games), there is a compulsion to create physically attractive avatars. What better way to interrogate this remediation of Classical idealism than to ‘infect’ fellow Second Life beings with our ‘bad’ code a.k.a. Code Deforma which produced elongated arms, inverted heads and contorted limbs!
Spawning is Wirxli Flimflam in pink, Alise Iborg in lab goggles and Tea Chenille with miniature head. 
Enclosed within our "No Entry" border tape, from left: Alise Iborg, Tea Chenille, Wirxli Flimflam and Tran Spire.
The title of our performance came to us after much back and forth discussion and we finally settled on
Spawn of the Surreal which we liked because it encapsulated the Fantastic of the B-horror film genre and the kind of Surrealistic operations of disturbance, disorientation and rupture that we were planning on releasing on our audience (at least one audience member fled in terror with his avatar still deformed)!
Infected by "Code Deforma", "spawned" audiences trample Second Front member, Tran Spire (the one in blue) as they flee the stage!With the closing of the first act, I witnessed not only avatars fleeing the scene but also others requesting more deforming, or ‘Gazzing’ as one audience member put it (a fitting tribute to our coder,
Gazira Babeli), Second Front performers joined in on the spectacle, performing a variety of shape-shifting animations.
I felt like I was participating in a morphing dance of sorts as our limbs and bodies were wrangled into bizarre forms.
Our morphing dance encompassing a frenzy of spastic movements, makes it almost impossible to know who is who! From left, Gazira Babeli in red, Alise Iborg, Tran Spire, Man Michinaga (with guitar) and Tea Chenille in far right corner.Unexpectedly, part of our dance went aerial when myself and others were flown out of the space - a very disorientating experience indeed!
Flying "spawn" - Alise Iborg with unknown "spawn" at left, and in the background right, is Gazira Babeli.The third and final act of
Spawn of the Surreal involved Second Front members making a group sculpture out of barricades that we used at a previous performance entitled,
‘Border Patrol’ part of
JC Fremont’s Imaging Place SL: The U.S./Mexico Border at Ars Virtua.
Beginning formations of our group sculpture.
The barricade sculpture at times, seemed to take on the forms of Cubist geometry and also made me think that our 'infected' avatars were conspicuously coded to create a totemic idol of worship to
"Spawn" - I think, either way, a perfect tribute to our spectacle!
Please read on for recollections of
Spawn of the Surreal by other Second Front members.
Virtually yours,
Alise Iborg a.k.a. Penny Leong Browne
Wirxli Flimflam's Recollections:Hey there performance art fans,
Feb 11, 2007 marked an important date for Second Front. This was the first time that we let the audience become the performers for a change :-)
If we “performed” at all, it was all to lure the audience into sitting on
Gazira’s scripted seats which would mutate their avatar’s appearance to become the
“Spawn of the Surreal" which became also became the “spectacle of self-consciousness”...heh heh!
Many members of SF acted as ushers (complete with flashlights) and insisted that a performance event was going to occur. Since the theme of the sim for this event was “Chaos”, we figured that continually goading and frustrating the audience would simulate a potentially chaotic situation.
A personal highlight for me was trying to convince one of the audience members that he was at the correct campus event... He was there do see a concert in a nearby sim area
(also in the “chaos” section of “Outreach Island”), and I insisted that he was indeed in the right place and that the musical performance would begin shortly. He sat for awhile and then his intuition got the best of him and he realized he would need to bail fast if he wanted to catch the musical concert. Fortunately for us, he still sat in our of Gaz’s chairs and became a member of the
"Spawn of the Surreal". He also had difficulties getting out of the exit door – he sure was considering alternative exit strategies! Heh heh!
My only regret was that I kept on getting airlifted out of the performance space (probably by a mutated audience member), this prevented me from properly participating in our impromptu performance sculpture towards the end of the audience-mutation portion.
I would imagine this performance at the
NMConnect Campus that was organized by
In Kenzo will be one of our last formal and official performances for a little while because we as a group are itching to do some more top-secret performance interventions. We are definitely wanting more balance in our lives :-)
So, stay tuned next for archives of previously unpublicized events... If you are lucky, you will have managed to fluke upon seeing us execute one of our most recent performances!
SLNN correspondent, Esther DeCuir is the avatar with the red skin and fancy multi-coloured dress...
On top of the Eiffel Tower in New Paris; From rear to front:
Second Front has been featured in the second issue (April edition) of SPark Magazine produced by Irish CEO, Aidan Aquacade. SPark is located in-world at these coordinates: Castle Bromwich City (38, 154, 26). If you already have Second Life installed and want to teleport there directly from the web, click here.
Here are some profiles of Second Front included in SPark magazine. A revised version of our group bio is now available on the right hand side of this blog...
Here is the editorial page about Second Front next to the advertisement for Man Michinaga's BitFactory on Columbia Island.
With this snapshot, you get sense of the size of the head-shots of Second Front in relation to the avatar body ;-)
Here is the review of our Martyr Sauce performance by Wrong Wright.
Here is the best group shot I could capture while secretly fearing for my life and the lives of my performance art colleagues in the combat zone... Do not worry though, we were extremely brave and courageous in our efforts to promote world-peace...
Here I am with Tea Chenille (with zebra stripes) and directly in front of my protest sign, Alise Iborg Zhaoying (wearing butterfly wings)...I am glad to see that she has also brought her sheep with her for good luck! In fact, I think just about all members of Second Front ensured that they had at least one sheep (is "sheep" singular or plural?) with them to guide them through our noble and righteous martyrdom operation. We are truly the shepherds of innocence in this psychopathic world! ;-)
Here I am with Great Escape. He was the one that found the giant psychedelic flowers for us... yaaaaaaaay! :-D
On the left we can see yet another Second Front member, Lizsolo Mathilde. She provided us with the sheep. She had a whole flock of them which would explain why she appeared like Lil Bo Peep ;-) Oh, and in the center yours truly... The dude with the machete and the "Jason" mask was named Galactus and he changed his form several times to engage us. He seemed friendly enough - he only wanted to "slaughter the hippies" and nothing more ;-) I am glad to see he agreed to at least one hit of some SLSD (LSD in SL) before revving up his chainsaw ;-)
...actually before he got to the point of breaking out his chainsaw, Galactus liked to turn into a DoomDemon and cackle in this very nerve-shattering yet silky smooth deep voice... As a last resort, he tried to send us fleeing with his "sonic boom" which sounded to us like soothing ambient muzak....OM! When I first met him in the combat zone, one of his buddies politely asked us if we were "griefers"...heh heh...Us? Griefers? O, the irony! ;-) Fortunately, Great Escape managed to get Galactus into a very errr.... compromising position oving and was able to pacify him for a few seconds before Galactus managed to completely de-rez GE into a pile of gray-goo slag! I am not sure who the other person is in this pic but they are obviously also turning grayer by the minute!
I think I was able to capture the exact moment in this snapshot when Galactus managed to wrestle himself free from Great Escape's loving embrace...
...here is a better pic of Galactus as his satanic self...I think we had him sufficiently surrounded by the eternally throbbing ripples of unconditional love and peace!
...and here is a pic from our rehearsal earlier that evening at Ian Ah's refurbished and relocated screening lounge on Odyssey Island...
I know that Columbia Island is going to be mine in the next couple weeks, and that there will be no less than three BitFactory locations, but I guess this is an avatar's trial by fire. Can the curator of a museum wait through homelessness until the new location is built? I guess I'll have to. 
Second Front infected by Code Deforma! From left: Great Escape, Man Michinaga (with guitar), Wirxli Flimflam, Tran Spire, Alise Iborg; Far right: Tea Chenille trepidatiously looks on.
Second Front's Alise Iborg observes audience members deforming.
Spawning is Wirxli Flimflam in pink, Alise Iborg in lab goggles and Tea Chenille with miniature head. 
Enclosed within our "No Entry" border tape, from left: Alise Iborg, Tea Chenille, Wirxli Flimflam and Tran Spire.
Infected by "Code Deforma", "spawned" audiences trample Second Front member, Tran Spire (the one in blue) as they flee the stage!
Our morphing dance encompassing a frenzy of spastic movements, makes it almost impossible to know who is who! From left, Gazira Babeli in red, Alise Iborg, Tran Spire, Man Michinaga (with guitar) and Tea Chenille in far right corner.
Flying "spawn" - Alise Iborg with unknown "spawn" at left, and in the background right, is Gazira Babeli.
Beginning formations of our group sculpture.
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.
Multiple images of RL people wearing hazmat suits created an atmosphere of 'strange reality' at Monday's screening.
Lizsolo Mathilde, the "creature in dragon fly wings" standing next to Tran Spire.
Great Escape and Gazira Babeli doing the "twist" for Art's Birthday.
Left-Right: A UPS delivery Van, Bryan Dix, Great Escape, Wirxli Flimflam, Gazira Babeli, Tran Spire, Westernfront Obscure. The pix on the wall (with the exception of the Last Supper mural) are by Chi5 Shenzhou. The Last Supper embedded video is still rendering in this pic.
Left to Right: Lizsolo Mathilde (below), Gazira Babeli (above), Tran Spire (above with pink flamingos), unknown avatar (above), WesternFront Obscure , Wirxli Flimflam, Great Escape (with Art’s Birthday Cake) and the UPS delivery van.
Left-Right: The UPS delivery van, Tran Spire, Wirxli Flimflam (in front of Tran), Lizsolo Mathilde, unknown avatar, Gazira Babeli...
In this pic, you will notice that Chi5 Shenzhou's photos have rendered and that the Last Supper mural is still in the process of rendering...
Left-Right: The UPS delivery van, Great Escape, Lizsolo Mathilde, Gazira Babeli (on the bed), Wirxli Flimflam, Tran Spire, Bryan Dix (special guest as Mr. Kool Aid), Tea Chenille, and WesternFront Obscure.
Left-Right: The UPS delivery van, Unknown avatar (on the bed), Gazira Babeli (also on the bed), Wirxli Flimflam, Bryan Dix (Mr. Kool Aid), Tran Spire, Tea (in front of Tran with chicken), Great Escape (still wearing the birthday cake)and WesternFront Obscure.
Left-Right: Tran Spire (still wearing that spectacular mass of pink flamingos), The UPS delivery van, Wirxli Flimflam, Unknown avatar (on the bed), Gazira Babeli, Tea Chenille, Man Michinaga, Great Escape, and our special guest, Bryan Dix aka. Mr. Kool Aid.
