Friday, December 21, 2012

2012 - THE END OF DAZE


HAPPY DOOMSDAY!

For the End of Daze, half of me celebrated by chatting with a random stranger (Alex De Jong) from Rotterdam as part of the Odyssey Performance Festival for a Dutch Gallery.It turns out this stranger was a Buddhist (which I could surmise from his preferred avatar, "Lodro")...This performance was curated by Haglet (in Amsterdam?) and was called "Standing in the Grass" or something like that...I was merely participating...all I knew was that I would sit in front of a TV and chat with some guy for about an hour - preferable about today's doomsday (or lack thereof)...It looked like there were many levels of mediation - - including a tweet-wall and some other trendy elements.

Thanks to Liz Solo and Odyssey Island for inviting me :-) Stay tuned for the other half of me performing at 4 AM SLT from Australia..will only Aussies attend? We shall see...

Here are some more pics...I will comment on some of them below but I will not spend too much time on them..my RL self is going to attend some Doomsday Karaoke at Open Space Gallery :-)

Scroll down for pics...

So yeah, there was a clear line distinguishing fantasy and reality...lolz! I was not sure which side I was on..I guess Alex/Lodro was straddling both sides as his live streaming TV image was on one side and his Buddhist avatar strolled across the lines like he was on a Bardo border patrol...

Yes, this pic is Liz introducing us :-)

Here is a close-up of the curator (Haglet).

Here is a crowd shot...

Just an audience shot..many friends were in attendance :-D

When the performance started, Alex was meditating so still, I thought he was a painted portrait at first...must have been the colour scheme! I thought maybe it was a jpeg texture and that the video was not streaming live yet...whooops!

As I mentioned earlier, there were many layers of mediation...hypermediation even more than remediation this time...At one point I asked Alex/Lodro if he received any super powers as a result of the 2012 ascension...I think he said he learned concentration...I learned how to speak to two people at the same time..almost telepathically ;-)

Lodro/Alex spoke with both voice and text...the voice was feeding back so it sounded like a trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantramantra trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantra trippy trippy trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantra trippy mantra mantra mantra...

Here is an "Action" shot...Lodro is the Buddhist monk...I mentioned that my other avatar identity, Qyxxql has spoken with Buddhists before...

Another audience pic...

Yet another audience pic...

There was this cool "mayadozer" avatar...clearly "he" was cleaning up for 2012!

There was talk about getting our chakras or DNA re-tuned after December 21st..Ummm..you know what I mean, right?

By Zeus! Where did the lightning come from???

Lodro mentioned how both Second and First Realities were voids..seemed like a well attended void when I was there ;-)

.......and here are the only other events I had time to attend during today's festival...

I saw the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse stream their tunage....

I also saw Tunisian artist, Wafa Borges present her terran sculpture based on Adam and Eve.








Saturday, December 1, 2012

Wirxli II talking at the Turing Gallery!


Hi all!

Yes, half-of-me was at the Turing Gallery on Extropia Island today discussing my art-being known as Qiezli. Qiezli's programmer, Michael Nixon was not in attendance so that bought me more time to blab about Qiezli's brief appearance on opening night. Basically, I had to clarify at the panel that the work creating Qiezli has absolutely NOTHING to do with my recent re-birth as a time-shared avatar. It was great to see a friend from Tunisia in attendance :-D

I am sure the curator Gracie Kendal will have a chat-transcript online shortly...in the meantime, here are some photos...let's just say, you had to be there ;-)

From left-right: Alan Sondheim, Sunflower (audience member), Selavy Oh, me, Gracie Kendall (curator), Philos, Jo Ellesmere...


There was a brief chat about aesthetics before we officially started...


Yes, Erik Rzepka was here ;-)

Friday, October 5, 2012

Interview = A Vivid Hallucination, Art = Life After Death...


Here I am with Jacque Drinkall for my in-tent interview...

The brevity of the interview immediately reminded me of my days as a SLebrity where I only had to chat for 5 minutes max! Other than that detail...I cannot remember much about my past life except that I became slightly nostalgic for it...

The main question asked was... "Is Art more about Life or Death?"

In Egypt, Art is about Life after Death...Clearly there is Life after Death in HobART. For example, I heard a gallery crowd in Tasmania at times but not at all times...I am sure their current incarnations are having more art and life than I am....I feel dead still....or worse, undead! Stuck in my old pixel-skin again....

Before the interview, I was loitering around Second Life's Tasmania which I am convinced was just a piece of land underwater...I preferred to loiter near it such as here...




What else can I say at this time? People are partying in Hobart and my biotar self needs to zzz...

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Q&A suggestions for the Half-Tasmanian Devil...


Hello again!

In my previous post, I hyped a rare opportunity to interview half-of-me as part of a show happening in Tasmania tonight.

If you visit the gallery in Tasmania (Hobart) tonight and ask me questions, you will see a future blog post with my recollections about our correspondence.

Not only that, you will Jeremy's voice...which is not the true voice of Wirxli, by the way...Wirxli2's real voice is likely some gender-neutral autotune of the Joker ;-)

Anyway, I am preparing for the possibility that perhaps no one actually wants to ask me questions so I have decided to talk to myself now and - as a contingency - answer some questions I have of myself...


Q: Why have you been resurrected?

A: To see if there was a Second Life after death. I also wanted to disappoint fans by cheating expectations for earning fame from dying tragically. If Superman can come back to life after best-selling issues celebrating his "permanent" death, I figured I could do the same.


Q: People say you (Jeremy) are only 50% Wirxli now..is this true?

A: Ok, I admit - when I say "people" I confess that the questioner is 100% Jeremy.
Yes, I am time-sharing Wirxli2 with Jacque Drinkall. More to the point, I only plan to be 50% myself when I am er....myself...This means, I will try and repress the other 50% of Jeremy-ness to make extra room for Jacque. Does this make sense? If not, welcome to my half-world :-D


Q: You used to be a trickster...is this still you? half of you? less? more?

A: I have aesthetic amnesia...I am a personality-in-progress. As I mentioned above,Wirxli might not even be 50% Jeremy and Jeremy was maybe only 10% the trickster that Wirxli was/is. There was a reason Jeremy became other avatars. He wanted to explore the other 90% of himself (but certainly not 100% of himself, that would have been truly lame). With a bit of luck, Jacque's personality becomes more dominant this time around. Also, when Jeremy (me) will re-connect with friends as Wirxli2, it may be more as Jeremy than Wirxli2...Jeremy was sick and tired of trying to be Wirxli all the time...it is like being a comedian where you always feel like you had to make someone laugh. Wirxli2 would rather be a two-trick-pony than a one-trick-pony now.
Being Wirxli as Jeremy, it is easy to fall back on "low hanging fruits" such as acting just like the old Wirxli...To quote Ronald Reagan, "Oh, now here you go again!" ;-)

Q: Why are you in Egypt?

A: I am site-seeing! Egypt was all about the afterlife and I figured an old-school Egyptian ritual would bring me back to my avatar body...However,that did not turn out so well so now I am already getting tired of Egypt... If any gallery visitors are around, I try and show them around Tasmania in Second Life.


Q: Who is Jacque anyway?

A: Jacque, who are you anyway? Maybe through tonight's questioning, you will reveal Wirxli's better half ;-)

Q: Who is Jeremy?

A: 100% of Jeremy is a banal bio-tar with lofty philosophical ideas. He is on facebook zzz-ing half the time and tries to live vicariously through his other avatars...emphasis here on his OTHER avatars these days ;-) All he really wants these days are autonomous artificial virtual companions and he wants to be a tornado alien or something like that...One day, Jeremy hopes to create an cy-clone avatar that represents his entire multi-faceted personality (and perhaps the combined personalities of all is friends merged into one)...The born-again Wirxli is the first step to this hive mind mentality...


Q: Why does Wirxli look the same as last time?

A: Wirxli's remediation of his/her appearance was due to a current lack of technical and fiscal resources... (Jeremy refuses to concede that it may have been due to a lack of imaginative resources). Soon enough, Jacque and Jeremy will re-design Wirxli to represent a genuine transformation of Wirxli's character-design.
The more artistic answer is that Wirxli2's dual-resurrection rituals (the volcano re-birth and the Egyptian ritual) simply did not work according to plan.

Q: Will Wirxli2 rejoin Second Front?

A: Wirxli nor Jeremy nor Jacque is entirely sure how many Second Front members are still active in this declining world. With a bit of luck, Wirxli2 can re-apply to perform with the troupe for at least one performance collaboration.

Anyway, I hope this self-interview will inspire some Tasmanians (moderated through Jacque) to ask some questions to me directly...I am more looking forward to the time when others can interview Jacque-as-Wirxli in the near future...I also cannot wait to wake up in Second Life and have no idea where I am or what happened to me ;-)

Let the Born-Again Games Begin!!



Tasmanian Half-Devil! Interview time tonight :-)

Hello Second Lifers and Second Half-Lifers and Tasmanian Devils! Remember me? Probably not...if that is the case, now is the time to meet me and see how half of me recovered from my avatar suicide! Tonight is your chance to interview me (well, half-of me)... By tonight, I mean 12:30 AM SLT. Add me (Wirxli2) as a friend and I will teleport over to this nice tent located somewhere in Giza. Feel free to ask me about whatever you want now that I am back or just hang out with me in-world. I will also be answering questions from the First-Life "In-Flight Artist Run Initiative" in Hobart, Tasmania. If you happen to live in Hobart, drop by at: 100 Goulburn Street. At the exhibition space, the other half-of me, Jacque Drinkall, will be facilitating the Q&A process from there. I look forward to seeing you...Maybe if I am lucky, I will see some old friends too :-) Cheerz, (1/2 of) Wirxli2

Friday, September 21, 2012

I met Qyxxql Merlin my spirit guide and guardian angel. My Sydney-based bio-self relaxed a bit, as my Vancouver-based bio self embodied another part of my former virtual self in Qyxxql Merlin, which was a bit confusing but in a good way. I dont know if my Vancouver-based bio-self is entirely happy about my volcanic resurrection, but I think it was also good for him to see me through the eyes of Qyxxql. Qyxxql showed me a beautiful place called crossing currents...went spent a long time communing there. This was after Qyxxql teleported me from an underwater rip on another reef location where I was exploring some underwater yoga techniques. My burnt legs would flip up to the top of the sand bar that I was standing beneath. But with Qyxxql I still couldnt stay out of the water, and I fell into the water a few times. The telepathic balaclava fascinator seemed to take on a function similar to an underwater breathing apparatus...I felt I could stay there a long time. After Qyxxql left I wandered around the beaches...eventually I found some dolphins. One dolphin nudged me! I wish I was a dolphin! I then went looking for some other beings returned from the dead, then t looked for some work at RMB city. I really need a real job...my Sydney-based bio-self gets paid $170 per hour for one lecture but she spends about 20 hours preparing for each lecture...so she gets paid less than a Hungry Jacks worker. I cant rely on her to pay for a better mouse and high res machinima.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Return to the Grave - A Grave Mistake?

I am....alive? I am not sure what happened or who I am anymore..or, if I was really anyone anyway...

Everything is still groggy...I remember some details of my past but not all...

I have no idea why I am speaking in the 1st person authorial voice now...I guess it is because I am self-aware again but I only feel like half of myself for some reason...

I do....remember my own grave...I was told I had a grave or my alt told me or a ghost told me...

I remember...my home...the name Sugar Mountain sounds familiar... on Odyssey...Did I leave there too soon? All my friends were there...oh, to live on Sugar Mountain!
I think my grave was/is there but I do not remember dying there...or did I? Did I leave home because I wanted to be alone? It would be funny to know how I would feel, if I found out Sugar Mountain was actually real.

There are many other questions I will eventually need to answer on my journal such as...

Why am I wearing this mask?



I managed to recall a teleport history and find my way back to home but "home" is not how I remember it exactly..not that I remember anything exactly(!)

I do recall being very social and yet very alone...

So, I was pleasantly surprised when an avatar artist named Jo Ellesmere found me on Odyssey...Her name sounds familiar...I do not know if I ever met her as Wirxli...I know my alts have met her (sort of) and maybe my Real Life self did (maybe?)

Regardless, she seemed very friendly so I friended her immediately..friending must have been my previous incarnation's impulse...I seem to always have my finger on the friend trigger...



Above is another photo..Same idea...why am I posting it? Why do I like posting photos that all seem the same? Was my past self obsessed with posting?
I think the chat-log mentions what I mentioned already...sigh!
I am still groggy, please forgive me...hmmm...I seem to be a polite individual...ah yes, I remember...my RL self is Canadian ;-)

I met another Canadian there...I know her in the same way I know Jo...In real life (sort of)..maybe as an avatar...Her avatar name is Satvva Constantine and all I remember is that she had been to Odyssey before - perhaps to document it.



ahhh..another photo...I am fading in and out of blogging consciousness and my bio-self does not even receive those painkiller narcotics until Wednesday! This one shows me looking for Sugar Mountain...Where is it? The mountain is gone? It is just a hill now? Did I make a grave mistake being reborn? Why I am here? Why is the mountain not here? Was I dreaming? Is this paradise? The name Sugar Seville comes to mind...why?
Is she the blue cube that Jo mentions is hiding within this hill? No...no...she is...she is a person...someone I knew well...she may have been a blue cube but...no...anyway, the blue cube does not contain my grave...it is empty....why am I here? Why do I feel that I look kind of the same but not exactly the same? Why do I have recurring thoughts that I wanted to be someone else? someone more alien? did I fail?



Here is another photo..it must be important..it shows Jo's discovery of the blue cube...is this important? was my home blue?



I do not see the blue cube...I do not even know if I see myself in any cube...



I must sleep..I am not yet ready to be in this world...for some reason, I never recall being this serious...

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Wirxli's painful rebirth



Wirixli2 resembles the virtual lava in which his/her rebirthing occurred. The heat of the volcano cleansed Wirxli2 from the scars of oblivion he/she sustained when he/she blew itself up 2 years and 7 months ago. Wirxli2 remembers nothing of his/her friends, family or the events surrounding his/her virtual death. But, having peeped into the Facebook posts of Jacquelene Drinkall, Wirxli has already developed an obsession with Pussy Riot. Wirxli is quietly confident those revolutionary chicks wont mind him/her wearing a mask, and they are sexy and punk...so something of the tastes of old Wirxli Flimflam seems to be present. The virtual telepathic balaclava fascinator provides new DNA derived from woven telecommunications wire, and it is assisting in Wirxli2's virtual skin grafts. Beneath the semi-transparent wire frame of the mask, Wirxli2's skin is still a raw pink and white complexion.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Wirxli 2 - The Resurrection of an Avatar!

Earlier today, the Australian conceptual artist and telepathy expert Jacque Drinkall leaked a rumoured sighting of the impossible...could it be that Wirxli Flimflam who has been dead for almost 3 years in SL -due to his/her dramatic suicide on Valentine's Day 2010 - has come back to life?

If yes, is this new Wirxli a ghost? a clone? a bot? an artist? a trickster? something else?



Little did Jacque know but her ontology was sucked into the vortex of Wirxli 2's birth-pangs...and Lo and Behold! Jacque became part of Wirxli 2's new split-personality with Jeremy Owen Turner!!!!

This new Wirxli is a sequel...a remake...This second Wirxli embodies the most annoying part of comic books when they resurrect a character the comic-company promised would finally have been killed off in order to sell a ton of comics about the character's death.

Wirxli 2 is all this and (not much) more...

Stay tuned to this blog to learn more about Wirxli 2's up and coming attempts to reintegrate him/herself back into Second Life's society. Who knows? Wirxli 2 may even re-apply to join Second Front(?)

In the meantime, here is a picture of Wirxli 2 emerging for the first time as a new dyadic being from the volcano...