Minotaure Haledol Dreams...Behind The Scenes...

Find more videos like this on Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance

This video of edited raw "rehearsal" and "performance" footage is by the Curator of the Museo del Metaverso, Roxelo Babenco. This video is fascinating in that it shows the blOOpers, glitches and sim crashes. What is the point of a live performance without these special features? ;-)

Hey there Minotauring Marble-dumpers, Padded Cellmates and Hipster Haledolts!

Finally, we have had enough time to reflect at "length" about our most recent performance that took place at Dorkbot Paris called "Haledol Dreams of The Minotaure".

We were successful with our attempts to blur the once-rigid events known as "rehearsal" and "official performance" into one epic and overblown theatrical Gesamtkunstwerk escapade - an insane one, at that!

Here is a basic list of the movements for this performance....This was originally drafted by Fau Ferdinand and Bibbe Oh and revised by the rest of Second Front...

I - "Rehearsal"
This was intended to confuse the audience and question the borderlines where formal theater and "just playing around" blur. Since all of Second Life is BOTH a "rehearsal" and a "performance" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, we thought we would have a movement that would reflect this.

II - "Part 1"

As the audience arrives and takes their seats in the padded room, the Nurses are already in place in yellow plastic chairs and the patients roam around the space playing their (dancing and wailing) animations. In addition to a selection of anims, each Patient has a wall they may attach as a proximity reaction when another avatar is perceived to be too close. When the Nurses spy a behavior they do not like, they react by shooting a hypodermic (enema sized needle) at the offending patient(s).

III - "Part 2"

Fau/Minotaure freaks out at a Nurse and is shot with a hypodermic and is rendered semi-conscious. Great Escape as Theseus approaches and offers Fau/Mino a tango. They dance.
The patients continue to improvise--but without the use of walls.

NO SMOKING

YOU WILL BE TIED TODAY

Fau/Minotaure is furious!

IV - "Part 3"

Fau counter-attacks by charging with a goring animation.

Liz (one of the nurses) shoots many syringes into Fau/Mino as she is charging--Fau falls. The inmates go out of control...

THE END

This event was curated by Evo Szuyuan and hosted at La Cantine Numerique in Paris in RL. If you do not believe this actually happened, just put on a beret to look like an Artiste and head down to:
151 rue Montmartre, dans le Passage des Panoramas, Paris
Métro Grands Boulevards
...and knock 536 times and ask for documentation from whomever is still watching re-runs of this momentous and historic event.

Speaking of re-runs, here are some photos from this performance...

Photo by Great Escape. This is the official entrance to the building. As you can see, this was a well postered event...

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a pic of Fau Ferdinand getting ready to perform as the Minotaure.

Here is Wirxli (yes, the blogger of this post) in the foreground with the audience and other Second Fronters including: Aliseiborg Zhaoying, Great Escape and Fau Ferdinand..Osprey Therian is one of the audience avatars who recorded a very classy video...

Here is Wirxli posing with the sexxxy nurses Lizsolo Mathilde and Chi5 Shenzhou.

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a pic of Tran Spire with his competing Jesus robe as well as further appearances by Alise, Liz, Chi5, Wirxli (sitting down) and Theseus aka. Great Escape...

Here is a kinky pic of Liz and Chi5 sitting by themselves with enema-sized needles.

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a close-up pic of Chi5 with a syringe...

Photo by Great Escape. Here is another action shot of Liz, Great Escape/Theseus and Chi5.

Here we can see the direct Jesus Idol competition between the equally delusional Wirxli and Tran as competing Jesus-freaks. The brand new Second Fronter Bibbe Oh is also seen in this pic. She was involved in many awesome pose-actions!

Here is Theseus (GE) chasing after the minotaur with Gog Mannonen also doing an impromptu intervention...In this instance, we have text that is calling out the performance "goo" that we were able to control in realtime...Quite honestly, this kind of text looks like Jim Morrison's poetry though...heheheheheh! ;-)

Here is a pic of Fau the Minotaure hiding behind the seats, Alise with her Nestorian tablet, GE/Theseus and Wirxli...

Once again, here is a great action shot of Bibbe flying through the air... In addition, we have Fau, Wirxli, Alise, Bibbe, Liz, Tran, and Chi5 ensuring that the spirit the "rehearsal" is still in effect...

Here is Wirxli (me) officially announcing the rehearsal, at last..sigh! What was funny is that we had a rehearsal for our official rehearsal...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! O, The Agony! ;-)

What is a good performance without some pyrotechnics and other rock'n'roll atmospherics? We managed to rez some virtual dry ice that hovered mere pixels above the padded cell's floor...

Here we have Rep Zabaleta from Dorkbot Paris having a puff of some leftover virtual dry ice pixels while we rez the crosses...

In order to guarantee multiple readings of our performance, we had ensured that there would be enough white noise on the video screen for spontaneous ITCs... On another note, Odyssey Island's curator Sugar Seville was also in the audience...

Photo by Tran Spire. Here is another angle of the white noise. The ensuing asylum cacophony still haunts both the space and the audience.

It looks like Tran has taken full messianic control of the white noise on the screen...well.... at least he believes he is channeling the 10 Commandments there, anyway... Alise is also in this photo as is an Easter rabbit (it was Easter Friday after all) and the official Dorkbot poster managed to make a special cameo appearance. Ok ok, posters do not have a choice like avatars do...they are forced to make an appearance since they are (usually) inanimate objects...unless they are goo-jects ;-)

This photo depicts an epic battle between GE and Fau... This battle is quite epic since many additional Second Fronters are involved in the action (if you can call it that). For example, Tran is on the floor writhing in messianic ecstacy while Nick Rhodes (Orange Island Curator) and assorted VIPs from the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse including the Evo Szuyuan the event's curator can also be seen in the audience...

Theseus takes a swipe at the Minotaure while Tran reaches his Christian climax when he passionately exclaims "I HAVE FALLEN...AND I CAN'T GET UP"...

This picture is very compositionally classical in that we see more action on the ground and a bigger audience for the colesseum slaying...

"WHEN I AM SEDATED, I HAVE DELUSIONS THAT THIS IS A THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE..." - Wirxli FLimflam. Great Escape looks wounded but this might just be for...er... theatrical effect. People are not meant to be wounded during the "rehearsal", right? ;-) .. Maybe some of the audience members were beginning to clue in that the official performance was about to begin as Paco Mariani found his own nosebleed seat... Also, one of the Dorkbots was doing a pole dance in anticipation of the grand finale to come... I mentioned VIPs earlier and one prominent one in the audience was Finally Outlander who lectured about his new film VolaVola earlier in the day....

Photo by Tran Spire. Here is a rather gratuitous angle showing the wounded Great Escape plus the gang looking insane as usual.

Photo by Tran Spire. Here is a decent pic of Wirxli (me) grabbing one of the audience member's body by her head like a marionette...Is this what the Second Fronter Gazira Babeli meant when she thought Second Life reminder her of some kind of twisted puppet show?

Photo by Tran Spire. Once again, here is another zany shot of Second Front.

This photo was taken due to the nice ambient lighting of the padded cell. One audience member looks like Gaz...is this Osprey?

Here is an amusing audience shot that also shows Great Escape with Fau about 2 tango.... Second Fronter VIP, Blued Food is also out of rehab and back in the audience...

Photo by Great Escape. It took awhile before the crowd realized that we were still "rehearsing"....hee hee! The assembled crowd began to grow which was all we needed to prolong the theatrical chaos. In this photo Tran, Alise, Fau/GE (tango-ing), Wirxli (me) and Bibbe are visible...

Photo by Great Escape. Here are some speech balloons that we rezzed when we said the magic word, "rise". Liz and Tran are also moonlighting in this pic.

Photo by Great Escape. GIMME SHOCK AND AWE TREATMENT! Here are some swarming Purpleized Iraqi flags and a speech balloon that says "Gimme Shock Treatment!" We can see more cameos from Alise, Wirxli and even Fau's bum is in this pic! Are you looking for an exit strategy at this point? ;-)

Photo by Great Escape. SHOCK AND AWWWWWWWWEEEE! Here is another tender tango pic....

Photo by Great Escape. This pic is so extremely tender, you can even see Great Escape's facial details...talk about a close shave, eh?

Photo by Great Escape. Fau looks fay in this very touching tango.

Photo by Great Escape. AWWWWW(EEEE), they must be like, in love or something! ;-)

Photo by Great Escape. Are you sick of the sentimental tango pix yet? LOL!

Photo by Great Escape.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Just when you thought you had seen the last tango pic... ;-)


Photo by Great Escape (naturally). Here is a solo pic of Great Escape as Theseus..Check out those rippling pex!

Here is a close up of Wirxli (me) with my token cross (I always fall back on a crutch such as a cross when I have nothing else to do in the performance). This pic can also be seen as an action shot of Great Escape... This is definitely a climax moment and not a blOOper as Fau is most certainly getting enema from Chi5 at this time... On a un-related note, I think everyone was in agreement that day that Samara Cioc had an AMAZING fire-extinguisher on her leg.

This one last archive pic from our behind-the-scenes footage includes a close up of Alise and Wirxli (me) as well as Liz, Fau, Tran and Bibbe...

Thanks for being patient and waiting for this posted equivalent of a "bonus feature" to arrive onto this blog! Please stay tuned for our up and coming performance premiering on April 14th, 2008 titled "Grand Theft Avatar 3, Heist City"...

Second Front performs at "The Gate", Opening for the iMAL in Brussels

October 4, 2007 - (20:30 SLT) Interactive Media Art Lab, Brussels, Belgium



Video by Penny Leong Browne a.k.a. AliseIborg Zhaoying

Second Front performed on October 4th to both a live RL audience in Brussels and at Odyssey in SL. The performance happened through a RL and SL portal space, The Gate, featuring a bi-directional video stream on a 4 metre x 4 metre screen projected live for the opening of the iMAL - Interactive Media Art Lab's new space. The show is organized and curated by Yves Bernard, Brussels, Belgium. Second Front performance curated by Domenico Quaranta.

Fau Ferdinand has joined Second Front!

If you cannot see this embedded video, click on the direct YouTube link here.

Here is a sublime performance documentary machinima video of Fau Ferdinand in her siren form videographed by Evo Szuyuan. It is from performances like these, where Second Front felt the strong need to actively recruit her into the group.

SECOND FRONT IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE FAU FERDINAND AS OUR 9TH MEMBER....

PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR UPCOMING BLOGS ABOUT HER FIRST PERFORMANCE WITH SECOND FRONT AT iMAL in BRUSSELS....

Here is a more humanoid portrait of Fau Ferdinand found on the New World Notes article, The View from Jerusalem.

"ZOMBIE ATTACK: 28 AVATARS LATER" VIDEO!

TO SEE THE HIGHEST RESOLUTION OF THIS MOVIE, CLICK HERE AND THEN VIEW FULLSCREEN...


This is the lower-resolution YouTube version. If you cannot see this embedded video, click here.

This video probably looks like a blank black screen to you but this is because Google-Video insists on picking the intro still-image as the very first frame...sigh! Anyways, this video is actually at a slightly higher resolution than YouTube. If you cannot see this embedded video, click here.

TO WATCH THE REST OF SECOND FRONT's VIDEOS AT HIGH RESOLUTION, PLEASE VISIT THE OFFICIAL BLIP TV VIDEO ARCHIVE, CLICK ON THIS SENTENCE.

Here is the official info about the video....

Second Front is a pioneering avatar performance art group in the mainstream, virtual world, Second Life.

This video is a machinima document of a live performance by Second Front.

For this performance, Second Front members transformed into zombies and ventured out on a quest to eat and therefore, infect other avatars.

Eventually the zombie horde climaxed in an intense suicide pact.

This video was edited by Great Escape (Scott Kildall) in the style of George Romero.

The footage was recorded by Gazira Babeli and Man Michinaga (Patrick Lichty).

The members of Second Front are:

Man Michinaga (Patrick Lichty)

Wirxli Flimflam (Jeremy Owen Turner)

AliseIborg Zhaoying (Penny Leong Browne)

Tran Spire (Doug Jarvis)

Lizsolo Mathilde (Liz Solo)

Great Escape (Scott Kildall)

Tea Chenille (Tanya Skuce)

Gazira Babeli (classified)

Cameo appearances included the SLebrities: Fau Ferdinand, Rubaiyat Shatner (Ars Virtua Curator) and Olga Wunderlich among many others...

ZOMBIE ATTACK! 28 AVATARS LATER...

SOME BRAINPOWER REQUIRED: SECOND FRONT GAINS NEW UNDEAD ALLIES WITHIN SECONDS OF ASCENDING THEIR GRAVES...
Photo by Great Escape. This pic illustrated well the disciplined nature of Second Front. Even with only 5 of us there at the very beginning, we managed to rid ourselves of any healthy flesh and got straight down to the nitty gritty task of infecting new zombies to act as SF cameo-appearances....

***UPDATE FROM THE NEAR FUTURE...
OLGA WUNDERLICH HAS BLOGGED THIS PERFORMANCE!***

Hey there splEEn-spOOks, thriller-seekers and other blood guzzling hobbyists,

About a week ago, Second Front drank some bad blood and turned into zombies en masse.

Always suckers for more popularity, the motley crew of avatar performance artists decided to turn their particular crisis into an opportunity and seize the Day of the Dead...

Consider this blog posting to be kind of like a photo-essay - you know, the kind that TIME magazine might publish or something ;-)

Ok, no point in describing everything in excruciating theoretical detail, here are some more pix from our performance called "Zombie Attack! 28 Avatars Later"...

Photo by Great Escape. Without a moment to waste, Second Front congregates at the "Stuff on Pikes" graveyard and gradually chomps the masses of flesh-filled nOObs in their group pursuit of the Quest for Brains...

Photo by Great Escape. Left-Right: Great Escape, Macky Oh (an infected nun with a groovy sk8board), Olga Wunderlich (stunned like a deer caught in headlights and waiting to be infected), Gazira Babeli (background) and Wirxli Flimflam.

Photo by Great Escape. It looks like Olga is pretending to hang around Great Escape and Macky Oh as if nothing unusual has happened. She was probably hoping that no one would take notice that her flesh was full-figured and her brain was still intact...ooops! Great Escape (the zombie with the most brain cells still in his head), saw opportunity knocking! ;-)

Photo by Great Escape. Olga is the very first victim of the evening. Great Escape has the pleasure of getting first dibs on her supple pixel-flesh. Perhaps this is Great Escape's form of gratitude for being interviewed by Olga a few weeks ago...heheheheh!

Photo by Great Escape. The infection works! Olga is Second Front's very first cameo zombie!

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a revealing pic of AliseIborg Zhaoying, Wirxli Flimflam and Macky Oh.

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a close-up of Lizsolo Mathilde as a zombie.

Photo by Great Escape. This pic was taken the minute Man Michinaga joined us. This moment was important as Man Michinaga's Aons-old arrival signaled the rest of us to officially commence Second Front's zany zombiefest.

Photo by Great Escape. Second Front members shown from left-right: Man Michinaga, Wirxli Flimflam, Tran Spire and Great Escape.

Photo by Great Escape. Great Escape's next victim apparently ownes the Graveyard (according to "reliable sources") so it is likely that she was eager to be victimized as soon as possible.

Photo by Great Escape. Ok, this pic shows that the "chaos" of our zombie dance was in fact perfectly choreographed. It would not be suprising if Ulrika Zugzwang would be pleased with our thrilling coordination.
Left-right: Great Escape, Tran Spire, Wirxli Flimflam, Liz Solo and some cameo zombie with some fancy blue shoes.

Photo by Great Escape. This might look like a scene straight out of an Ulrika Zugzwang machinima movie but actually, this pic shows Second Front getting enough blood and guts to channel the legion of cacodemons from the Doom Trilogy.. You might know the Ancient saying, "We are Legion for we are plenty".

Photo by Great Escape. BRAAAAYYYNNNZZZ! WE NEEEED MOOOREE NOOOOOB BRAAAYYYYNZZZZ! The zombies begin to look desperate so Second Front sends forth a scavenger scout (Wirxli) to hunt down more nOObs in other designated land-plots.

AND YET, SECOND FRONT's HORDE BORES QUICKLY AND THEY STILL NEED MORE FRESH BRAINS...

Photo by Great Escape. Gazira Babeli and AliseIborg Zhaoying have gleeful fun coordinating the feasting activities of the zombie horde.

CURATE OR BE CUREATEN: ARS VIRTUA's CURATOR GETS INFECTED BY SECOND FRONT!

Photo by Great Escape. The Unholy ritual is complete! Ars Virtua's curator Rubaiyat Shatner has been successfully infected by Great Escape. From this point onward, Institutions and Performance Artists will forever be bonded in blood (and brains, of course)!

Photo by Great Escape. We think this winged zombie used to be Olga Wunderlich, but now we are not so certain.... I think we missed the missing link in this part of her evolution towards full-blown zombiehood...sigh!

Photo by Great Escape. Finally, we found a zombie training basement where we could test out our newfound brainlessness.

Photo by Great Escape. Here we are practicing our devious dance moves for MUNCHFEST 2007.

WELCOME TO THE DEVIL's PLAYGROUND!

Photo by Great Escape. At this point, we had teleported to The Devil's Playground where we were able to locate more brains and innards for our cause...

Photo by Great Escape. Here are some cameo-zombies having a field-day with each other in the Devil's Playground. Great Escape is doing a great job of micro-management here. Who says zombies are incapable of efficiency? ;-)

BLOOD RED-BERETS: WOULD YOU LIKE ANY THRILLER FRIES WITH THAT?
QUENCHING BRAINTHIRST AT THE EIFFEL TOWER IN NEW-PARIS...

Photo by Great Escape. At this stage in the "game", we had entered New Paris in order to find the Eiffel Tower. The French are always sitting ducks waiting to be consumed by Performance Art! In the foreground from left-right are the Second Front members: Great Escape and Tea Chenille. Yes, most of the pictures feature Great Escape this time and this is because he was in charge of taking the photos...lol!

Photo by Great Escape. If you look above, you will see that our friend Fau Ferdinand is one of the poor infected souls forced to make an appearance as a cameo-zombie for Second Front. If you look a little more closely, you will also noticed that we use teddy bears to lure in our prey...Mwua-hahahahahaha!

Photo by Great Escape. Here is another pic showing Great Escape faffing around with our zombie cameo-fodder.

THE CARNIVAL OF BRAINLESS CARNAGE CONTINUES IN THE LOCAL nOOb SANDBOX...

Photo by Great Escape. Here we have Second Front members Liz Solo and (yes, again) Great Escape playing in the sandbox when they should be on the hunt looking for fresh nOOb blOOd. At least they were dancing the authentic zombie dance since they were adhering to the measured grid-lines of the local venue. Context is everything when it comes to Second Front performances, even when one has to resort to line-dancing!

Photo by Great Escape. Either it is photographic propaganda or Great Escape appears to be the most successful with hunting down fresh meat! Perhaps, his grid-dance mentioned above was a way to focus his leftover virility and brainpower in a calculated effort to seduce more avatar bodies? Long Live The nOOb Flesh!

Photo by Great Escape. Some of the nOObs in the sandbox were genuinely afraid of us and tried to flee from this performance artist epidemic.

IRISH (S)CREAM, ANYONE? THE CARNAGE CLIMAXES IN A LAGGY DUBLIN NITECLUB...

Photo by Great Escape. The Monster Mash! Here we are in some packed (and therefore, laggy) bar in Dublin full of drunken Irish rowdies who were really cheery and pleasant (what's new?)...in fact, some of them were even brave enough to get close to our infectious (s)pores!

Photo by Great Escape. As you can see, there was plenty of tantalizing Irish nOObflesh to be had...YUMMY TREATS! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....BRAAAAAAYNNNNNZ! NEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDD BRRAAAAYYYYNZZZ!

Photo by Great Escape. Some of the more well-accomplished table-dancers managed to avoid our infectious grooves entirely and stick to their own non-sticky shimmy. I guess in a way, anytime after midnite is fair game to pretend you are undead!

Photo by Great Escape. Here is another view of the Irish dancefloor... Zombie Bloody Zombie! I will follow!

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a great aerial view of the Irish party bash!

SUICIDE-SAUCE: ENDPARTY IN RAUSCH's COMBAT SIM...

Photo by Great Escape. Finally, we decided to re-visit our old "haunt" (pardon the pun) - the Rausch combat sim where we once performed our Martyr Sauce intervention many (full) moons ago...

Photo by Great Escape. Left-Right: Tea Chenille, Great Escape, Man Michinaga, Liz Solo and Wirxli Flimflam.... MMMMMM! Some freshly rezzed brains just begging to be eaten in the safe zone of the combat sandbox! Hmmm..which side to eat first, the left side or the right of the brain? Oh well, all this sort of theoretical thinking was too lively for us so we figured it was best just dance our hearts out (in some cases, literally).

Photo by Great Escape. Here we are again dancing further and further into conceptual Goth oblivion...Hmmm...I guess we had too many brains for our bite, eh? Sigh!

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a good aerial pic showing you the kind of mayhem-sauce we were dipping into for dinner. We had a surplus of brains that day which might explain the epic length of our performance.

Photo by Great Escape. Finally, we decided to try some suicide sauce with our brains to enhance the flavourless flavour and sure enough, it was Second Jonestown without the snipers! I mean, we were in the safe part of the combat zone after all, right? Mass suicide is the best way to gain mass appeal so we figured we would try this method for a change..usually, we act like real martyrs and just re-enter the space but....uhhhh... it is all for the sake of art-stardom, right?

Photo by Great Escape. Most of us are dead at this point but you will notice Tran Spire (standing in the center with the turquoise hair) seems to be gaining weight from all this liquid gluttony. Oh wait, maybe it is the vodka that is keeping him alive and supersizing? He did die by the end of our performance, this much is guaranteed.

Photo by Great Escape. Here is a good shot of the bulk of us who have successfully opened Heaven's Gate to see yet another banal safe zone in a combat sim, sigh!

So much for the White Light! SIGH! Adios, performance art fans! Stay tuned for the up and coming "Zombie Attack: 29 Avatars Later" movie coming to your blog-theaters soon.