One Man's Odyssey

          If you trap lightning in a bottle, is it still lightning? Man Michinaga would probably say no. The academic and artist Patrick Lichty has been researching and making art in virtual reality for over twenty years now, and is probably best known in SL for his work with the Odyssey group. They use the sim to put on performances, like this one, Dido's Lament but the region risks extinction later this year through lack of funding - they're paying the Lindens a whopping three hundred bucks a MONTH to stay open! (how can that make any sense when you can get a Zetamex hypergrid enabled region for three bucks? *shakes head*) Anyway, Patrick's entry to SL is an interesting and erudite variant on the common theme.

Teleported rubberneckers

Patrick Lichty: About 9 of us were interested in doing performance art in Second Life based on what Marina Abramovic did in 2005 with her Seven Easy Pieces decontextualization of performance art into the Guggenheim, and then our friends' Eva and Franco Mattes' further decontextualization of performance by taking the flesh and blood out of it in their Synthetic Performances in 2006. Around then, Jeremy Turner, Doug Jarvis, Scott Kildall, Liz Solo and I though all of this was a bit absurd and we formed Second Front as I was building The BitFactory, an art center that gave rise to Odyssey.