RMB City: Second Life In An Avant Garde Art Gallery

After Virtual Worlds 2008, I got in a cab to catch the final days of my friend Cao Fei/China Tracy's RMB City project at Lombard-Fried in Manhattan's Chelsea District.  Dominating the gallery's front room, Fei's virtual visualizations of her Beijing fantasia are displayed in several mediums-- in beautiful, framed screenshots on the wall, in a foam sculpture in a display case, and on a LCD screen underneath a misty pool of water on the floor.  You can also access the RMB construction site in Kula from a Mac running Second Life with one of Tracy's alt avatars.  After getting permission from the actress/model-looking receptionist and the young hipster Williamsburg-esque couple got up from the laptop, my partner Schlink Lardner took these pics.  While we did that, an older gentlemen with a wizard's beard came up to see what we were doing; he explained he was a Resident himself, and wanted to write down the coordinates for the RMB site, so his avatar could visit it himself.

And with that, Second Life's "If you told me X years ago..." moments keep coming.  If you told me 5 years ago that Congress would hold an official hearing on the importance of avatars and virtual worlds, I'd call you crazy.  If you told me 3 years ago that I'd be accessing an MMO from a leading gallery in the Chelsea district, Manhattan's art scene epicenter, I'd say "maybe"-- but if you added that the project would garner a glowing review in the New York Times and a high ticket acquisition, I'd definitely call you kookie. 

Comments

[Lili]

When does she plan on starting to build it ? Did she recruit anyone to help her since the first October announcement ? Is Kula a temporary construction site ?

[Hamlet Au]

I'm not sure on all those questions, I'll ask Fei to talk to those...

[Dennis Bacsafra]

Hi Hamlet, it was good meeting you at the VWC. Flora and I did the same thing...we headed for the RMB City exhibit right after the convention. The curators didn't seem to have issues with us taking photos. We snapped a bunch...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dens/sets/72157604429292688/

I got started on your book already. It's the perfect thing to read on the flight back to California.

Cheers,
Dennis

[Hamlet Au]

Great pics! Good to meet you all too.