UBUWEB
My selection is centered around Jon Rafman’s “Kool-Aid Man in Second Life”, in which Kool-Aid – a jug overfilled with the eponymous drink and icecubes – serves as Jon Rafman’s avatar inside Second Life’s virtual world. Floating in a constantly fluid mixture of animal, human and fantasy creatures, users, avatars and inhabitants, virtual fantasies and real, an unappealing sort of beauty shines through what could be called a cyber surrealism of the commons – the piece is almost an elegy to the liberational potential of the internet – a space where fantasies become true. It is as well the place of exuberant emotion – through pastoral sublime scenes in now far outdated CGI, in trance parties and open mic nights or sex marathons, the piece feeds on emotions – and Kool-Aid, gloriously optimistic, is always ready to pick up and continue, even after he gets unexpectedly humped by a dragon during a dungeon visit, always on the verge between voyeur and participant.
I emulated Kool-Aid’s flânerie modus into UbuWeb, lingering where I saw fit and gleaning parts- Fassbinder's soundtracks reflecting his elaborations on melodrama, meant to be played alongside Valentine de St Point’s controversial – to say the least – Futurist Manifesto of Lust, two out of seven of Tony Smith’s cardboard parts of a model for his “Maze Sculpture,” published in Aspen magazine in 1967, which provided also the DIY kit for a kite designed by Nori Sinoto 4 years later, containing a passage on desire from Chou Tun-I. To end it all, an essay from T. Adorno, anthropomorphizing punctuation marks, and a poster from the Outsiders selection, containing the cryptic message “No free assssscat tonight,” summing up ideas of commons and desire.
UBUWEB
My selection is centered around Jon Rafman’s “Kool-Aid Man in Second Life”, in which Kool-Aid – a jug overfilled with the eponymous drink and icecubes – serves as Jon Rafman’s avatar inside Second Life’s virtual world. Floating in a constantly fluid mixture of animal, human and fantasy creatures, users, avatars and inhabitants, virtual fantasies and real, an unappealing sort of beauty shines through what could be called a cyber surrealism of the commons – the piece is almost an elegy to the liberational potential of the internet – a space where fantasies become true. It is as well the place of exuberant emotion – through pastoral sublime scenes in now far outdated CGI, in trance parties and open mic nights or sex marathons, the piece feeds on emotions – and Kool-Aid, gloriously optimistic, is always ready to pick up and continue, even after he gets unexpectedly humped by a dragon during a dungeon visit, always on the verge between voyeur and participant.
I emulated Kool-Aid’s flânerie modus into UbuWeb, lingering where I saw fit and gleaning parts- Fassbinder's soundtracks reflecting his elaborations on melodrama, meant to be played alongside Valentine de St Point’s controversial – to say the least – Futurist Manifesto of Lust, two out of seven of Tony Smith’s cardboard parts of a model for his “Maze Sculpture,” published in Aspen magazine in 1967, which provided also the DIY kit for a kite designed by Nori Sinoto 4 years later, containing a passage on desire from Chou Tun-I. To end it all, an essay from T. Adorno, anthropomorphizing punctuation marks, and a poster from the Outsiders selection, containing the cryptic message “No free assssscat tonight,” summing up ideas of commons and desire.