Image by Aestival
The thing that people seem to love most about The Gates in Central Park is, it brings people together. Stockbrokers and artists, working class families and socialites in Prada, everyday people of New York all come together and share the same experience, as brought to them by the mad vision of Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude.
After Aestival Cohen and her friend Lex Neva launched their own Gates project in Second Life, the everyday people of Second Life showed up too: a samurai warrior, a little girl with Margaret Keane eyes, a space commando and his dropship, an industrial designer with two adjustable chairs in his pocket, a transformer robot, a half-naked man with massive pecs, a furry in a flying vintage automobile, and so on.
And this is more or less what inspired Aestival to bring her tribute to Christo's Gates here.
"It's not about a message or an idea," she tells me. "It's a thing that we all share in doing that then makes an experience. An experience that's bright, beautiful, loud, garish, occasionally buggy, awesomely big, and a real group achievement... We want to set them up everywhere!" She enthuses. "Christo covered Central Park-- we'd like to extend his achievement to cover an entire WORLD!"
For now, though, the Gates are most pervasive on the private island of Briarcliff Manor. For now, as it turns out, but not for long.
I found that out when I was taking photos of a knight in shining armor and a transformer robot, posing near a circle of Gates near Briarcliff's shore. On the foothill behind them, I noticed, were two statue copies of themselves, holding up protest signs.
"So what's the story about the sign up there with you two?"
"The SOS sign? Well, Briar is the place we've hung out a long time," explains Zekeen Phoenix, shifting in his metal carapace, "but tomorrow, it's being sold to Anshe Chung. So we're losing the place we've been for months. So we got the Save Our Sim signs just because we're so distressed... just imagine a small town getting demolished. Same principle here."
"They are almost as beautiful as some of my Sale signs," Anshe says of the Gates, grinning. I've invited her over to Briarcliff, to get her side on the purchase of the island, which she already surveys with a proprietary air. She's a delicate Asian woman, somewhat resembling Hong Kong film star Maggie Cheung. She also happens to be one of the most successful real esate speculators in Second Life, and she's planning to turn Briarcliff into a themed community.
"What about the Gates, Anshe?" I ask. "Will you get rid of those too, after you take ownership?"
"Mmmm, maybe I replace them with For Sale signs," she replies, then chuckles.
"Seriously," she continues, "I plan to have the sim reformated before I take ownership... and I don't see how Briarcliff [as it exists] could be continued in a viable way."
"But how about a work of art like the Gates here, Anshe? No room for that in your plans for Briarcliff?"
"No," Anshe Chung answers, grinning. "I am evil business girl who forces sims to finance themselves."
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