After having spent some time using the Second Life virtual world, I found it difficult to see how I could create something in these spaces that I really believed in. For me, the best thing about it is that there isn't really gravity, so you can make objects suspended in the air and then fly around them. I made a floating, pink, spherical object on the GSA island which excited me for about five minutes but as for using the world to communicate and live a second life through my avatar, I'm not too fussed. So I wondered, how could this be taken further in an art project to create something that I truly believe in, and then I found out about a Chinese artist, Cao Fei, who uses her learnings from Second Life to not only to create work within the virtual world, but who's findings have fuelled her to make work in Real Life too.
Cao Fei has taken the idea of the avatar alter-ego and created these wacky, super-hero type costumes in which people wear in the real world to take the life of the avatar out of the computer and onto the streets. She calls these works "COSPLAYERS" and is an experiment to give young people dressed as game characters the ability to traverse the city at will, and to engage in combat within their imaginary world. They expect their costumes will grant them true magical power, enabling the wearer to transcend reality and put themselves above all worldly and mundane concerns.
The images here are photographs of her COSPLAYERS out in the real world, and she documents these as photos and films. As well as doing this, Cao Fei reflects on the behaviour of avatars in the digital environment of Second Life and the motivations behind people who explore and inhabit virtual worlds. She makes video installations using these sites and has even gone on to create her own virtual utopia, RMB City, in which she is both participant and observer through her Second Life avatar, Tracy China, who acts as a guide, philosopher and tourist.
To find out more about her virtual world, log onto www.rmbcity.com
To look at more of her work outwith second life visit www.caofei.com
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