ELEVATOR PITCH: Its “Listening Post ” meets “Total Request Live”
Jack the Pelican Presents Brooklyn is Watching (sponsored by Popcha!) is a conceptual art project by Jay Van Buren about “cultural colonialism,” marketing, the attention economy, critique, dialog, power-relationships, and the difference between potential and actual with four parts spanning the virtual, 3d space of Second Life, the two dimensional “traditional” internet and the ultimate hipster mothership, williamsburg brooklyn. It is an artwork, an entertainment product, a venue for critical dialog and a marketing vehicle. It also will be a hell of a lot of fun.
Part 1: (Second Life) A very tall tower in secondlife with a huge sign that says “brooklyn is watching”.
SLURL here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Popcha/72/140/27
At the top of the tower is a large window where people in the observation room can look down on a stage on the ground. That stage, the area that is visible through the window is marked with signs so that people know when they are visible by the BiW avatar in the tower. The view of the BiW avatar is projected at all times on to the wall of the physical Jack The Pelican Presents gallery in Williamsburg Brooklyn. (part 2).
Part 2: (Real world) In Jack the Pelican there is a computer connected to the internet and running the Second Life application at all times– an avatar for the project has been created ( it is a giant eyeball with an ironic trucker hat ) It will reside in the tower generally speaking but when visitors to the gallery choose to they may drive the avatar and take it wherever they want, so long as they teleport back “home” to the tower when they are done for the sake of the next visitor– the view of this avatar out of the tower window will be shown on a large flat-screen monitor on the wall of the gallery. The BiW avatar also has scripting built into it so that it follows anyone who approaches the stage if its not receiving any commands from a person in the gallery, this way if people in the gallery don’t know how to “drive” their view will automatically change to show whatever is happening on the stage. The stage itself, is also rigged with a giant spring that raises the stage suddenly and violently when someone in the tower presses a special button catapulting anyone on the state off immediately. This is creates a ‘gong-show‘ effect where people in the gallery can express their displeasure or boredom with the activities on the stage.
Part 3: (BLOG) Avatars will be able to take a snapshot of what they are doing in front of the tower and email that jpg to a special email account that is set up for this purpose. Also, anyone inside the gallery will be able to email snapshots taken from the point of veiw of the BiW avatar. In this way people will be able to document performances that they do for brooklyn is watching even when there is no one in the gallery. The “brooklyn is watching” intern(s) will spend about an hour each day looking at emails that come in, and blogging in an opinionated manor about things that have happened in the window– if they are not interesting they will be noted and if appropriate, mocked—- when interesting things happen they will investigate by going to see things, or visiting with people etc to get more info for a longer blog post. The blog will contain links (SLURL’s) to anything that is of interest. This blog provides the main list of things to talk about for the blog- and provides a place for people to talk back to brooklyn is watching.
Part 4: (PodCast) A weekly podcast called “brooklyn is watching” will be recorded at Jack the Pelican consisting of Jay Van Buren (a natural omni-enthusiast), Amy Wilson (a natural skeptic) Don Carol , owner of Jack the Pelican and an entertaining and opinionated contemporary fine art expert, and Boris Kizelshteyn, the owner of Popcha! a SL marketing company and a rotating cast of other art people who are interested in Second Life, also ‘guest stars’ pulled from amy and jay’s contacts in both the art world and in second life. We will argue entertainingly about whatever happened in the window (or anywhere else in secondlife we feel like talking about) that week while drinking. We’ll also talk about any comments that get posted on the blog and anything else we think is worth talking about. The format is unabashedly patterned after diggnation (http://revision3.com/diggnation/) a popular podcast about tech-news.