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Pioneering Second life performer, sculptor, and general cause of mayhem, Gazira Babeli recently showed at Fabio Paris gallery and Brussels iMAL,and has consistently pushed the limits of art in this metaverse. Despite being one of the earliest artists committed to the virtual space, she displays an ambiguity towards it's denizens. Previous performance,
COME.TO.HEAVEN put avatars into freefall from the world maximum height, revealing a series of
grotesque distortions caused by hitting terminal velocity. Other interventions such as her Goo series Designed and coded specifically for the show, Olym Pong continues Babelli's subversions; pushing, shunting and slamming avatars back and forth in an extrapolation of the classic videogame and subsequent hacks such as Patrick Lichty's Eternal Pong. The work was played at the opening by SL performance group, Second Front, in-world as well as being available to visitors to engage with On Site at the opening. "The Oracle shouts: HADES wants to PONG Chip Poutine!" Chip Poutine, Virtual Suburbia Vaco Waco arrives at Olym Pong. It is a glorious house of pong! Athenian, atop a high marble podium. A game of pong is playing on a plasma screen above the house of pong's black entrance. I feel too reserved to enter immediately. I begin a quick reconnaissance of my surroundings. Below the podium are images mashed up to become architecture. Mao, dance step instructions, platforms for me to stand. It seems chaotic and not nearly as grand as the house of pong. A little like being in the slums. I fly back up to the Athenian temple and I enter. The pristine room is sparse, white, classical, with blocks of black lining the walls. The blocks resemble the monoliths in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Marble textures on the walls. Second Life is much like the web of 1996 made in 3D; I remember these marble textures in a guestbook I signed once. I think I might be mixing my associations. I approach the flame in the center of the temple and ... ouch! Bash! Whump! I immediately lose control. The black blocks have come alive and I'm being gamed by the Gods. The Gods must be laughing. I am a pawn in their fickle game. I get chucked out of the room entirely and end up in the sea below. Like a sucker I'm back for more. I want to know how much I can control. I approach the flame. Once more I'm bandied about like a toy, except I can avoid the black blocks this time and aim for a corner. I get clipped on my way out and find myself cemented into the architecture unable to move, staring at the top of my head as my avatar squirms about. I've been ponged. Good game. - Luke Duncalfe, Programmer, University of Auckland
I've been PONGED! The grandeur of the classical architecture, the timelessness of the materials, the lack of flashing arrows or info kiosks to push you around - it all invites you to dig deeper. You take a few more steps, and find your way into the sacred temple, but it still isn't talking. But then, at the height of intrigue, you are suddenly made aware that this place has been watching you all along... It doesn't just hack Pong, it hacks you! - Keystone Brouchard, Virtual Suburbia
Gazira Babeli is my favorite griefer in any life. Her use of physics to challenge our sense of self - as avatars - forces the visitor to rethink their place in virtual worlds, and exploits the capabilities of Second Life to the max. Grief me anytime, Gaz. Gazworks!
Co-lab-club-game virtual environments, such as 2nd Life, in which democratic disciplines begin to merge from different origin points, in a 'blind' active process, led me to the realization that Pong is the 'end game' in all experimental 'play' media. In ready-made scenarios, sensory and motor functions form a continuous loop amplifying the user participation in the dialogue as an equal 'player' with a more experienced 'maker' and contextual framework.1 Navigating a complex complicated debate of the development of technological tools and performance based historical references in the process of the artist's impulse, one that is sensitive to the unique context of sensation as the avatar in the act of 'becoming' becomes aware of the process that generates an activated moment-to-moment play expression of actions and also creates a new impulse in the user to hit 'print' at any given point in the process, thereby becoming the 'Duchampian' artist in the endgame- '...its time it ended...and yet I hesitate, I hesitate to...to end.'2
Marcia Lyons,
Programme Director,
Digital Media Design, Victoria University of Wellington |
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