DOMESTIC TECHNOLOGY OR, NEVER ALONE: Cyberfest 2010, Housebugs

When I first heard the concept for Cyberfest 2010, "Housebugs," exploring technology in everyday domestic life, I knew I had to take a comic angle. The tools of domestic technology, like vacuums are great, but what I could really use . . . .

"Domestic Technology or, Never Alone" is "machinima," digital video captured in real time in a virtual world or in a video game; in this case, the video was shot in a virtual installation I built in the virtual world Second Life when I was invited to contribute to Cyberfest 2010, an annual festival of digital art and media, which took place in St. Petersburg, Russia, in November. It uses animations for the dancing that were made with animation software and motion capture animation; in the virtual installation, avatars can watch the video and do the animations as they experience the grayscale space.

All the promises of technology for improving domesticity, like so many of the images of domesticity in culture, are idealized fantasies very distant from my everyday experience. From the 1950s on, television intensified the fantasies of perfect domesticity, even in shows like I Love Lucy that showed the cracks in the "feminine mystique."

Today, in a virtual world like Second Life, representations of homes and homelife are even more idealized than on film or television, and the necessarily messier reality beyond the computer screen conflicts with the idealized images on it. Despite the promises of domestic technology, some things defy our best efforts at control. Might as well dance!

Selected for the ada Studio Film series On the Wall, Berlin, January 21, 2011. ada-studio.de/​pages/​veranstaltungen.html

Cyberfest is an annual festival of digital art and media in St Petersburg, Russia, November 19-26 2010. cylandfest.com/​site/​?lang=en
See the installation and the inworld Cyberfest in Second Life: slurl.com/​secondlife/​Chronocules/​224/​154/​14

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• machinima
• cyberfest
• cyberfest 2010
• cyland
• Second Life
• SL
• virtual art
• virtual world
• domesticity
• technology in everyday life
• showtune
• dance
• funny
• housework
• kung-fu
• samba
• avatar