{"id":7060,"date":"2023-01-09T05:16:35","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T11:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=7060"},"modified":"2023-01-09T05:16:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T11:16:35","slug":"second-life-avatar-featured-in-legendary-opera-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/second-life-avatar-featured-in-legendary-opera-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Life Avatar Featured in Legendary Opera House"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"entry-header\">On The Continued Cultural Reach of the Virtual World<\/h2>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"entry-body\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf74053ef02af1c972490200d image-full img-responsive alignnone\" title=\"Cao Fei Vienna Opera House China Tracy Second Life\" src=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341bf74053ef02af1c972490200d-800wi\" alt=\"Cao Fei Vienna Opera House China Tracy Second Life\" width=\"640\" height=\"384\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In case you missed it over the holidays, the New York Times&#8217; story on the use of contemporary art <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/23\/arts\/music\/vienna-opera-safety-curtain.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">displayed in major opera houses<\/a> casually mentions that &#8220;the Chinese-born multimedia artist Cao Fei is showing a female avatar \u2014 a dystopian, pale-white head so imposing that signs have been put up all over the [Vienna] opera house to alert spectators to its presence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That avatar is actually China Tracy from Second Life &#8212; she still has an active account in SL, look her up! &#8212; who&#8217;s been showing up in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cao_Fei\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cao Fei&#8217;s art projects<\/a> since 2007:<\/p>\n<p>In a really great early machinima (watch below):<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\n<div class=\"entry-more\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5vcR7OkzHkI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Also <a href=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/nwn\/2007\/07\/this-is-truly-c.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in a virtual real estate sale at Art Basel in Miami<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And then <a href=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/nwn\/2008\/08\/rmb-city-opens.html\">a whole city in Second Life<\/a> which was then depicted in several top galleries and art museums, <a href=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/nwn\/2021\/06\/cao-fei-sl-artist-moma-rmb-city.html\">including the New York MOMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf74053ef02af148bd9e7200c img-responsive alignnone\" title=\"Cao Fei SL art\" src=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341bf74053ef02af148bd9e7200c-800wi\" alt=\"Cao Fei SL art\" width=\"328\" height=\"305\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And so on. This is another key way in which Second Life continues to be a model for the Metaverse. While say Roblox and Fortnite have much larger user bases, you will see little evidence of them in culture outside gaming. And definitely not in a top art museum or opera house.<\/p>\n<p>Because in the end it&#8217;s not just about raw user numbers, but cultural reach, and what is often called &#8220;thought leadership&#8221; &#8212; a perspective that influences how the broader society thinks and engages with the concept of virtual worlds and the Metaverse in general. <a href=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/about.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">(And, yes, I&#8217;ll be writing much about that in my book.)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Top photo credit: Andreas Scheiblecker\/Museum in Progress<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Have A Great Week From All Of Us At Zoha Islands\/Fruit Islands<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On The Continued Cultural Reach of the Virtual World In case you missed it over the holidays, the New York Times&#8217; story on the use of contemporary art displayed in major opera houses casually mentions that &#8220;the Chinese-born multimedia artist Cao Fei is showing a female avatar \u2014 a dystopian, pale-white head so imposing that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/second-life-avatar-featured-in-legendary-opera-house\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}