Somebody by L1Aura Loire

SOMEBODY

A Virtual Art Installation at the Caerleon Museum of Identity in Second Life--opens in SL October 2

The Ambiguity of Identity . . . . October 2010 . . . . L1Aura Loire


I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!

This installation riffs off Emily's Dickinson's poem, "I'm nobody! Who are you?" The "you" in the poem could be your avatar, or the person who you know but as a "nobody," pseudonymously. What does it mean to be a "somebody" in a context in which the trappings of identity can be invented and changed?

I started thinking the poem about in relation to some of the issues raised in this Caerleon show when I read it on a translucent panel suspended over the lapping waves of Boston Harbor outside of the Institute for Contemporary Art last year Some of the video/images you see in this installation is of that panel, with ambient sound, and the watery theme stems from that as well. It also became interesting for me to think about the water as a mirror, water reflections being one of the most compelling graphics effects in Second Life, for me. Then the play on see/sea took hold, and I wondered how video of water and waves would intersect with their virtual reflection, and used the shared media on a prim capabilities in Viewer 2 to juxtapose virtual/actual, highlighting ambiguities of identity and identification that encompasses and goes beyond what we see/sea in the reflections of our mirrors, waters, and screens.


NOTE: Like many of Dickinson's poems, more than one version exists. The one in the audio for the installation is the second version, which is not the one in the video and images from the ICA, Boston. I actually prefer the audio version:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
  
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Audio recordings from http://librovox.org LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books (and poems) in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Their goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.

Thanks to: Maya Paris, Misprint Thursday, & Sage Duncan for timely help and overall good cheer, FreeWee Ling for organizing the exhibition, and the Caerleon Artists Coalition.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Ambiguity of Identity
• Caerleon
• machinima
• Second Life
• SL
• viewer 2
• virtual art
• Emily Dickinson
• poem
• video art

[CelestialElf]

interesting film :)