The end of the world is happening again …

The end of the world is happening again … and it is happening constantly.

Almost a week after New Years Eve 2012, with my bio-self based near Sydney Australia, I feel like everyone has already forgotten the End of the World. More importantly people have forgotten that the End of the World is happening constantly. The digital world meant to end with New Years Eve 2000 with the Y2K bug not so long ago. Three years ago Wirxli Flimflam blew himself up, somehow giving way to the unnatural gestation of me, Wirixli2, over a period of twenty-seven months.

When I teleported to Haglets chat room on December 22, 4AM SLT (11pm Australian Time) my bio-self had already survived the Mayan Apocalypse for about 25 hours ... and I my other bio-self in Vancouver, who is not my current bio-self, had already checked in on the Second Life performance art world to report on the general widespread awkwardness of survival and ongoing tick tock and calendar flip of persistent worldiness. In the immediate post-Mayan-Apocalypse-survival-afterglow, my current bio-self had just made the last major move of stuff into her new house, so she had the sense of the end of an old domestic world and the start of a fresh new one, with lots more space and no annoying housemate. With me being transported a second time to Odyssey Performance Art festival highlighted the existence of duality of identity, multiple worlds and worlds within worlds. These worlds connect, collide and interrupt each other all the time. As an avatar with a split personality I have a keen sense of split worlds. A good split creates constant flow of twins, doubles, cleaves, mirrors and the wide range of telepathic sparks that leap between all connective difference.

My other bio-self had earlier chatted with a Buddhist via Haglet’s TV porthole to the ‘real world’, which I nor my current bio-self have no real memory of. We only know about this by way of some Facebook chats, and his previous blog above - which was posted in a more timely manner almost immediately after his performance. At Haglet's chat room I found a bit of a technical apocalypse, which Gijs and Liz Solo and perhaps another at the Gallery in Holland were fixing. Thankfully Gijs was there in his Second Life personage instead of on the TV screen. He had never appeared as an avatar before, but with the TV providing no evidence of the real world in Amsterdam he appeared in 3D social media. I was partially hypnotised by the TV screen, which glowed white ... is this what the total End of the World might look like? Or is it just a virtual world in which the only porthole onto the ‘real world’ is replaced by a white ganzfeld glow? I was drinking something that rezzed like the steamy white egg that I was born out of, before I could work out how to download into Second Life properly. I had no idea how I had come to be drinking this coffee ... it was Liz Solo who said I was drinking coffee ... was it Mayan? Catching the white glow of TV and virtual coffee helped to push my eyelids apart and focus. All this white noise cast doubt on the existence of the ‘real world’ and suggested ghostly digital traces of telepathic ganzfeld and apocylptic potential.

Gijs was interesting and gently charming person/avatar to chat with, and our conversation loosely touched on the Apocalypse quite a bit, whilst also discussing the connective gap between virtual and real worlds and various minutae. I enjoyed communing with him post apocalypse and the hour went very quickly. Also present were Haglet Alter, Liz Solo, Pyewacket Kazyanenko, Jo Ellsmere, Lodro Rigdinz Wangs, Pixel Reanimator, Isetine Heron and perhaps a few others. Apparently there were others in the gallery including Haglet, Gijs and at least one other - these biological persons were drinking fake chicken soup. I imagine it was cold there in Holland. Because the TV ‘real world’ porthole link was down, Liz Solo reported that twit pics were available, and a few pics were posted of Gijs and another in the gallery. “Evidence!” I would exclaim. I asked about evidence of Gijs existence in the real world, the gallery, and other parts of the world. Despite my bio-self watching numerous TV reports about post-Apoclypse survival, I was keen to make some independent verifications. Pye became fixated on a picture of a sheep in gallery in the photo of Gijs ... possibly betraying the New Zealand origins of Daniel Mounsey, and this was very reassuring somehow. Animals own another world different to ours, even when they are in the same country. Pye also remarked on how odd I looked, so I felt obliged to explai n to Pye and Gijs and others that I blew myself up about three years ago and was recently reborn through a virtual volcano. Disappeared avatars are like disappeared worlds, they can so easily be rewritten and reborn. I like that I have two bio-selves, and I like that my other bio-self is Jeremy, who was the original bio-self for Wirxli Flimflam. Jeremy seems happy to have a Wirxli back in his life and he is treating me well.

After the performance with Gijs, I spotted a cute tiny avatar called Isetine Heron with a Santa hat. So cute!

Later I went to check out Jo Ellsmere and Pyewacket Kazyanenko’s performance Minimal Glitch. Sca Scilova teleported me and I took lots of photos and some video. Ze Moo, Glyphe Graves and a number of others were there. It was a beautiful performance, with large sculpture, an even larger Pye with enormous laptops, wonderful Jo Ellsmere Pyebots, and poetic flows of digital code of ones and zeros that could be decrypted with a special decoder link to reveal some profound truths about ‘the worlds’, but especially virtual worlds. At the end of the performance Ze Moo’s enormous head exploded. It became apparent that his enormous head had taken on the appearance of the spherical Mayan calendar and it was exploding and sending out digital repetitions and dissolutions. Then I had a chance to catch up with Glyph Graves and Sydney Dorkbot news.

All these memories of worlds within worlds are very vivid today, as I return to wonder about them with a renewed sense of constant apocalypse. Even Gijs was a world within a world! The Mayan world didn’t just collide with modern and digital world. There are many Mayan worlds and many digital worlds and many worlds beyond and they are all in constant in flux and change. Even the worlds that have already ended change constantly, depending on who performs them and with which software and hardware.

2012 - THE END OF DAZE

HAPPY DOOMSDAY!

For the End of Daze, half of me celebrated by chatting with a random stranger (Alex De Jong) from Rotterdam as part of the Odyssey Performance Festival for a Dutch Gallery.It turns out this stranger was a Buddhist (which I could surmise from his preferred avatar, "Lodro")...This performance was curated by Haglet (in Amsterdam?) and was called "Standing in the Grass" or something like that...I was merely participating...all I knew was that I would sit in front of a TV and chat with some guy for about an hour - preferable about today's doomsday (or lack thereof)...It looked like there were many levels of mediation - - including a tweet-wall and some other trendy elements.

Thanks to Liz Solo and Odyssey Island for inviting me :-) Stay tuned for the other half of me performing at 4 AM SLT from Australia..will only Aussies attend? We shall see...

Here are some more pics...I will comment on some of them below but I will not spend too much time on them..my RL self is going to attend some Doomsday Karaoke at Open Space Gallery :-)

Scroll down for pics...

So yeah, there was a clear line distinguishing fantasy and reality...lolz! I was not sure which side I was on..I guess Alex/Lodro was straddling both sides as his live streaming TV image was on one side and his Buddhist avatar strolled across the lines like he was on a Bardo border patrol...

Yes, this pic is Liz introducing us :-)

Here is a close-up of the curator (Haglet).

Here is a crowd shot...

Just an audience shot..many friends were in attendance :-D

When the performance started, Alex was meditating so still, I thought he was a painted portrait at first...must have been the colour scheme! I thought maybe it was a jpeg texture and that the video was not streaming live yet...whooops!

As I mentioned earlier, there were many layers of mediation...hypermediation even more than remediation this time...At one point I asked Alex/Lodro if he received any super powers as a result of the 2012 ascension...I think he said he learned concentration...I learned how to speak to two people at the same time..almost telepathically ;-)

Lodro/Alex spoke with both voice and text...the voice was feeding back so it sounded like a trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantramantra trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantra trippy trippy trippy trippy trippy mantra mantra mantra trippy mantra mantra mantra...

Here is an "Action" shot...Lodro is the Buddhist monk...I mentioned that my other avatar identity, Qyxxql has spoken with Buddhists before...

Another audience pic...

Yet another audience pic...

There was this cool "mayadozer" avatar...clearly "he" was cleaning up for 2012!

There was talk about getting our chakras or DNA re-tuned after December 21st..Ummm..you know what I mean, right?

By Zeus! Where did the lightning come from???

Lodro mentioned how both Second and First Realities were voids..seemed like a well attended void when I was there ;-)

.......and here are the only other events I had time to attend during today's festival...

I saw the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse stream their tunage....

I also saw Tunisian artist, Wafa Borges present her terran sculpture based on Adam and Eve.

Wirxli II talking at the Turing Gallery!

Hi all!

Yes, half-of-me was at the Turing Gallery on Extropia Island today discussing my art-being known as Qiezli. Qiezli's programmer, Michael Nixon was not in attendance so that bought me more time to blab about Qiezli's brief appearance on opening night. Basically, I had to clarify at the panel that the work creating Qiezli has absolutely NOTHING to do with my recent re-birth as a time-shared avatar. It was great to see a friend from Tunisia in attendance :-D

I am sure the curator Gracie Kendal will have a chat-transcript online shortly...in the meantime, here are some photos...let's just say, you had to be there ;-)

From left-right: Alan Sondheim, Sunflower (audience member), Selavy Oh, me, Gracie Kendall (curator), Philos, Jo Ellesmere...

There was a brief chat about aesthetics before we officially started...

Yes, Erik Rzepka was here ;-)

Interview = A Vivid Hallucination, Art = Life After Death...

Here I am with Jacque Drinkall for my in-tent interview...

The brevity of the interview immediately reminded me of my days as a SLebrity where I only had to chat for 5 minutes max! Other than that detail...I cannot remember much about my past life except that I became slightly nostalgic for it...

The main question asked was... "Is Art more about Life or Death?"

In Egypt, Art is about Life after Death...Clearly there is Life after Death in HobART. For example, I heard a gallery crowd in Tasmania at times but not at all times...I am sure their current incarnations are having more art and life than I am....I feel dead still....or worse, undead! Stuck in my old pixel-skin again....

Before the interview, I was loitering around Second Life's Tasmania which I am convinced was just a piece of land underwater...I preferred to loiter near it such as here...

What else can I say at this time? People are partying in Hobart and my biotar self needs to zzz...

Q&A suggestions for the Half-Tasmanian Devil...

Hello again!

In my previous post, I hyped a rare opportunity to interview half-of-me as part of a show happening in Tasmania tonight.

If you visit the gallery in Tasmania (Hobart) tonight and ask me questions, you will see a future blog post with my recollections about our correspondence.

Not only that, you will Jeremy's voice...which is not the true voice of Wirxli, by the way...Wirxli2's real voice is likely some gender-neutral autotune of the Joker ;-)

Anyway, I am preparing for the possibility that perhaps no one actually wants to ask me questions so I have decided to talk to myself now and - as a contingency - answer some questions I have of myself...


Q: Why have you been resurrected?

A: To see if there was a Second Life after death. I also wanted to disappoint fans by cheating expectations for earning fame from dying tragically. If Superman can come back to life after best-selling issues celebrating his "permanent" death, I figured I could do the same.


Q: People say you (Jeremy) are only 50% Wirxli now..is this true?

A: Ok, I admit - when I say "people" I confess that the questioner is 100% Jeremy.
Yes, I am time-sharing Wirxli2 with Jacque Drinkall. More to the point, I only plan to be 50% myself when I am er....myself...This means, I will try and repress the other 50% of Jeremy-ness to make extra room for Jacque. Does this make sense? If not, welcome to my half-world :-D


Q: You used to be a trickster...is this still you? half of you? less? more?

A: I have aesthetic amnesia...I am a personality-in-progress. As I mentioned above,Wirxli might not even be 50% Jeremy and Jeremy was maybe only 10% the trickster that Wirxli was/is. There was a reason Jeremy became other avatars. He wanted to explore the other 90% of himself (but certainly not 100% of himself, that would have been truly lame). With a bit of luck, Jacque's personality becomes more dominant this time around. Also, when Jeremy (me) will re-connect with friends as Wirxli2, it may be more as Jeremy than Wirxli2...Jeremy was sick and tired of trying to be Wirxli all the time...it is like being a comedian where you always feel like you had to make someone laugh. Wirxli2 would rather be a two-trick-pony than a one-trick-pony now.
Being Wirxli as Jeremy, it is easy to fall back on "low hanging fruits" such as acting just like the old Wirxli...To quote Ronald Reagan, "Oh, now here you go again!" ;-)

Q: Why are you in Egypt?

A: I am site-seeing! Egypt was all about the afterlife and I figured an old-school Egyptian ritual would bring me back to my avatar body...However,that did not turn out so well so now I am already getting tired of Egypt... If any gallery visitors are around, I try and show them around Tasmania in Second Life.


Q: Who is Jacque anyway?

A: Jacque, who are you anyway? Maybe through tonight's questioning, you will reveal Wirxli's better half ;-)

Q: Who is Jeremy?

A: 100% of Jeremy is a banal bio-tar with lofty philosophical ideas. He is on facebook zzz-ing half the time and tries to live vicariously through his other avatars...emphasis here on his OTHER avatars these days ;-) All he really wants these days are autonomous artificial virtual companions and he wants to be a tornado alien or something like that...One day, Jeremy hopes to create an cy-clone avatar that represents his entire multi-faceted personality (and perhaps the combined personalities of all is friends merged into one)...The born-again Wirxli is the first step to this hive mind mentality...


Q: Why does Wirxli look the same as last time?

A: Wirxli's remediation of his/her appearance was due to a current lack of technical and fiscal resources... (Jeremy refuses to concede that it may have been due to a lack of imaginative resources). Soon enough, Jacque and Jeremy will re-design Wirxli to represent a genuine transformation of Wirxli's character-design.
The more artistic answer is that Wirxli2's dual-resurrection rituals (the volcano re-birth and the Egyptian ritual) simply did not work according to plan.

Q: Will Wirxli2 rejoin Second Front?

A: Wirxli nor Jeremy nor Jacque is entirely sure how many Second Front members are still active in this declining world. With a bit of luck, Wirxli2 can re-apply to perform with the troupe for at least one performance collaboration.

Anyway, I hope this self-interview will inspire some Tasmanians (moderated through Jacque) to ask some questions to me directly...I am more looking forward to the time when others can interview Jacque-as-Wirxli in the near future...I also cannot wait to wake up in Second Life and have no idea where I am or what happened to me ;-)

Let the Born-Again Games Begin!!

Tasmanian Half-Devil! Interview time tonight :-)

Hello Second Lifers and Second Half-Lifers and Tasmanian Devils! Remember me? Probably not...if that is the case, now is the time to meet me and see how half of me recovered from my avatar suicide! Tonight is your chance to interview me (well, half-of me)... By tonight, I mean 12:30 AM SLT. Add me (Wirxli2) as a friend and I will teleport over to this nice tent located somewhere in Giza. Feel free to ask me about whatever you want now that I am back or just hang out with me in-world. I will also be answering questions from the First-Life "In-Flight Artist Run Initiative" in Hobart, Tasmania. If you happen to live in Hobart, drop by at: 100 Goulburn Street. At the exhibition space, the other half-of me, Jacque Drinkall, will be facilitating the Q&A process from there. I look forward to seeing you...Maybe if I am lucky, I will see some old friends too :-) Cheerz, (1/2 of) Wirxli2

I met Qyxxql Merlin my spirit guide and guardian angel. My Sydney-based bio-self relaxed a bit, as my Vancouver-based bio self embodied another part of my former virtual self in Qyxxql Merlin, which was a bit confusing but in a good way. I dont know if my Vancouver-based bio-self is entirely happy about my volcanic resurrection, but I think it was also good for him to see me through the eyes of Qyxxql. Qyxxql showed me a beautiful place called crossing currents...went spent a long time communing there. This was after Qyxxql teleported me from an underwater rip on another reef location where I was exploring some underwater yoga techniques. My burnt legs would flip up to the top of the sand bar that I was standing beneath. But with Qyxxql I still couldnt stay out of the water, and I fell into the water a few times. The telepathic balaclava fascinator seemed to take on a function similar to an underwater breathing apparatus...I felt I could stay there a long time. After Qyxxql left I wandered around the beaches...eventually I found some dolphins. One dolphin nudged me! I wish I was a dolphin! I then went looking for some other beings returned from the dead, then t looked for some work at RMB city. I really need a real job...my Sydney-based bio-self gets paid $170 per hour for one lecture but she spends about 20 hours preparing for each lecture...so she gets paid less than a Hungry Jacks worker. I cant rely on her to pay for a better mouse and high res machinima.