I’ll admit: I don’t know what’s going on.
Did I miss something? I’ve been under the weather for a few days with this stupid allergic reaction (long story, incredibly boring as well) and suddenly I find that the sim has been hijacked by some sort of creature who is making frequent visitors say things they didn’t say.
Wait, let me explain that better: You show up at BiW and as long as you’re reasonably near the front entrance, it appears that you are “hearing” (over chat) a conversation between several notable BiW folks - Jay Newt, Monet, Selavy, me, and so on. Except of course, that none of those people are online nor are they chatting to you - the lines of text that pop up seem to be randomly generated.
(Jay, do you think - like, for my birthday or something - you could actually really say this line, like in RL? That would be great.)
The quotes seem to veer between the banal (something along the lines of “Can you give me a ride home?”) and the violent (see the one above). When I googled the one from the picture, it came back that the author of that line was Louis-Ferdinand Céline, about whom I know very little.
I searched and searched the sim for some sort of information about what the piece was about, who the artist was, if all the quotes came from the same source and… nothing. At least nothing I can find. Nothing but these fucking quotes that kept following me everywhere, that would be ignorable for a few moments and then say something sort of objectionable and grab my attention away from whatever I was looking at.
This piece is quite brilliant - the way it got under my skin, annoyed me to the point where I actually cared (ok, that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but really: how much SL art really elicits care? it’s pretty remarkable to be able to do that). It reminds me a bit of the paparazzi piece from a few weeks ago, but I like this one way better. I feel like it’s using the technology of SL in a really evil and disruptive - and yet, extremely subtle - way… and I approve.
(postscript: I’ve been trying to think of some RL artworks to toss into a discussion about this piece and so far, the best I can come up with is Acconci’s Seed Bed. The SL piece lacks the obvious sexual charge of Seed Bed, but has that same sort of aural-invasion-of-personal-space thing going on.)
I totally agree about it being wonderful. I had to get on a little BIW group conference chat to find out WTF was going on because i was very very confused. The kinds of stuff that the voices say remind me most of “the hybrid” on Battlestar Galactica (really interesting looking article i’ve not yet had time to read where i stole that pic from)who says all kinds of very bland nonsense along with crucial bits of plot and predictions of the future. I was pretty happy when this season some of the characters started showing their frustration with the hybrid’s nonsense. BSG may have jumped the shark this season but even post shark-jump its one of the best shows on TV, i think…. BUT back to this work- the key is for sure the fact that its using names from the area and that is only important because BIW is a little community now with a lot of people returning again and again.. I kept thinking… “where are my friends? where did they go? I don’t see them, and why are they talking all kinds of crap like they are a hybrid cylon?”
Left by jvanb on June 21st, 2008