What happened here? Is this an official performance or an excuse to squander Second Front's official invite at the Zonal Contemporary ArtFair in Miami? Perhaps this performance is all about squandering any conventional expectations for what traditionally constitutes a formal "performance" in favour the more divine cause of partying like a maniac? OK, you can blame the recent influx of virtual snow (cocaine) this wintertime as the primary cause for this downhill Telecultural snow crash. Here is a pic of what the event "Art Basel Miami Vice" looked like at its peak/climax before everything was snorted, sexxxed and eventually sucked down the drain (and up the group's nose orifaces).Yes, you are not hallucinating - those actually are ostriches in an orgy room with some paranoid ego-crazed cokehead performance artists arming themselves to the teeth while inviting a bunch of their employees and friends to take part in this decadent debaucle! So, how did this all come to pass? Do these actions deserve some avatarial discipline and maybe even some rehab for the holiday season? Ho Ho Ho, time to read more about it below...
Hey there Boogie Nightlights and Vice Squads with dayglo fannie packs, pastel Armani Suits and two-day stubble!
This posting is the beginning of the documentation from our most recent performance in Miami.
Here was our official press release written by Man Michinaga:
Press Release:
Second Front's
Art Basel Miami Vice
Dec. 6, 2007, 3:30 PM PST/SLT
In conjunction with
Gosia Koscielak Gallery @ Miami, NOW Art Fair
http://www.gosiakoscielak.com.
TELECULTURE: Dreams at the Epicenter @ Zones Art Fair
The Atlantic Basin Project, RCA Gallery., St. John's Newfoundland Canada
Press Contact:
Patrick Lichty, Second Front
Second Front Blog:
To commemorate the arrival of Second Life based performance to the
shows surrounding Art Basel Miami, SL's first performance art
collective, Second front, are creating an event entitled "Art Basel
Miami Vice" This work is in conjunction with the TeleCulture
exhibition, curated by Jillian MacDonald and presented by Lee
Wells/PAM at Zones, Second Front works presented by Gosia Koscielak
Gallery, as well as live projections at the Atlantic Basin Project
and at The Project Room, Columbia College Chicago.
Scenario:
Recent successes have catapulted Second Front to the heights of the
virtual art world. And, in coming to Art Basel Miami, SF has fallen
in with the proper scene of art-world decadence. Hovering limos,
pastel suits, .45 caliber pistols, seas of virtual coke and sexual
peccadillos with flocks of ostriches invade Miami nightlife. Will SF
fall in with virtual Colombian drug cartels? Will they even sell a
painting? And what about the Ostriches?
Art Basel Miami Vice is an expose of the Miami art world underground
nightlife with all its drama, danger, and wildlife.
Thanks to all of the sponsoring institutions for making the piece
possible, and check the Second Front Blog around Christmas for more
information...
So that was how we mythologized this event, here are some more photos to prove to you that the "myths" are in fact, very REAL...
So, the evening did not exactly begin without a hitch. Perhaps we were trying a little too hard to keep our cool but the fact was, we were begging to be chilled-out even more by our recently minted stash of Second Snow. Already, withdrawal was causing some organizational mix-ups as we were trying to coordinate two limos and two limo drivers. We spent so much of our hard earned Linden bux on cocaine (before Fau bailed us out, it was costing us L$30 a line...yikes!), we resorted to hiring a chimp named Clint and our friend Blued Food as the limo drivers (the ones Second Front planned to hire bailed out on us at the last minute, perhaps they had their own vices to pursue at all cost or maybe they knew that we would not be able to pay them on time due to our own expensive pursuits...sigh!). So anyways, here is a pic of some of the SF members trying sit properly in one of the limosines... The initial plan was simple: 1) just drive every member in 2 limos down the hill maybe 2 or 3 blocks and then, 2) arrive in SLebrity style at our Miami Villa designed from pre-fab parts by Gazira Babeli...Yeah, that was the "plan" but every coke-head has a half-baked "plan" waiting to hatch, right?
At the time this pic was taken, we managed to fish one of the limos out of the water (we were so high, we thought all limos in SL were amphibious) and also spotted one of our favourite members of the paparazzi, Marco Manray. He hitched a ride with us in more ways than one...Usually in RL, the paparazzi chases behind the stars sitting in the limosine but this time, the paparazzi was chasing with us while IN the limo...this kind of logic only makes sense in SL or for those who are too high on nose candy to care.
The black limo may not have been able to swim through water but Blued Food's more luxurious white limo was able to hover (a la the movie Blade Runner) us up to the top of the Villa for the commencement of the party's Phase One. Since only Blued's limo was working properly, he had to pick us all up in two driving installments since each limo only seated 4 (other than the driver)....Well, at least we were able to "pay him in kind" for his services rendered as you will read in the upcoming...er...lines ahead ;-)
Within minutes of disembarking the entire Second Front group and the entourage from the limo and onto the Villa's rooftop patio, the Second Fronters wasted no time and began to line up and er.... "perform" at the altar next to the hot tub and the interactive copy of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies book....SNIFF! SNORT! "ME FIRST!" "NO, ME FIRST!" Does this sound familiar? In the artworld and rockstar world, we call these selfish and greedy attitudes a form of "successful group dynamics" ;-)
By the time this pic was taken, most of the group was sober enough to head downstairs to snort some additional lines of coke in the main lobby... It took Lizsolo Mathilde and Wirxli Flimflam (yes me, the blogger du jour) quite a few minutes (perhaps hours) afterwards to move our noses off the tray upstairs and proceed to the "2nd course" portion of the powder buffet... Liz and I are used to getting bogged down with lines and lines of something...these days, we call this ritual part of the "grant writing application process".... "OH! WHAT A FEELING!"
Finally, the party moved to the main lobby downstairs and in hardly any time flat, Second Fronters were flattening out both their nasal cavities and their spines...fortunately, there were couches! It was also at this time that we (including the "paparazzi") began inviting more of our friends to show in order to "further subvert the conventional expectations underlying a conventional performance"...er...some BS like that anyway. What we really wanted was more hot pixel-prims for the orgy and since Second Fronter Fau Ferdinand found some free refillable coke (only available to VIP SLebrities like Second Front), we felt that the more would indeed be the merrier :-)
Here is yet another pic of us huddling around the couches... It was great to see our friends Bibbe Oh and Chi5 Shenzhou there and the group was also introduced to Marco's friend, Bettina Tizzy. A little later in the evening, the Italian Film-maker Finally Outlander (oh wait, he was there almost at the beginning of the snortfest, actually) and also the Berliner Blogging Artist, Olga Wunderlich joined in to indulge in the action and also.... Yes, the performance artist Bea Box was also there and the rest is probably just a blurry blizzard at this point... 
Here is where we see the third and final phase of our "performance". The "performance" culminated in a surreal orgy and fiendish coke-snorting session that left most of us paranoid and ego-maniacal. The bedroom coke orgy was so intense, you could even see if from this zoomed out pic... I think Second Fronter Man Michinaga had the right idea and bailed before events took their natural turn for the worse. Some Second Front members (like Great Escape, AliseIborg Zhaoying and Tea Chenille) were super-wise by either staying home sober or simply snorting their own supply at home. Blog readers can rest assured that this performance party very likely seriously burned us out and perhaps Second Front's New Years Resolution for 2008 will be to check into Rehab...sigh! At the very least, we hope the curators at Miami were forgiving enough to consider booking us in the near future...
