The Girlfriend Experience
Multi-player game with avatars of flesh and blood
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26 Jan 07 20:00> 9 Mar 07 23:00
Mediamatic | Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam (view on map) | T 020 638 9901 | www.mediamatic.net
The Girlfriend Experience -
Photo Willem Velthoven 2007
Visit the avatars by clicking here: http://girlfriend.mediamatic.net.
Available every Wed, Thu & Fri from 8 until 11 pm (CET).
Martin Butler presented four human avatars to play with. You could log in at home with your character of choice. You could direct the avatar, explore the space and challenge him or her.
The avatars could also be observed live in their Analog Villa on Wed, Thu & Fri from 18.00 - 23.00. You could also DINE with the avatars. Their favorite food: DIY SUSHI, a concept of Debra Solomon/culiblog.org. Every evening we offered workshops: make your own sock puppet and discover you non-verbal flirtings skills.
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The rampant growth of online avatar communities such as Second Life and World of Warcraft has enabled the creation of a personal online social and economic existence. Simultaneously this triggers inherent questions about this existence, as it questions what the consequences will be for first life, or reality.
When you use virtual avatars you can do as you please. In The Girlfriend Experience you will have to get to know each other first. Player and avatar explore what they can do for each other and how far the avatar wants to go to execute specific desires. It is ambiguous who is really controlling the situation. You have ten minutes to figure out what you can do with your avatar. After that, your time is up and another player can take your place.
The title of the project, The Girlfriend Experience, denotes the paradoxical character that online social interaction has. On one hand, the safe anonymity by using the avatar, on the other the intimate releases and projections that can spread easily. For Martin Butler is this the merging of two apparent extremes, anonymity and intimacy, which characterizes an important part of contemporary social traffic. The best paid prostitutes are the ones with whom the client feels as though he is with his girlfriend, or with whom he has a Girlfriend Experience.
Two of the four avatars of The Girlfriend Experience. Photo: Willem Velthoven
"Do you Really need to speak so loudly?" Avatars preparing for the opening on 26 January 2007. Photo: Jans Possel
Playing dress up. Foto Marco Wessel
During the opening of The Girlfriend Experience players enjoy having contact with on of the avatars. After logging into an avatars the players use Skype to communicate with their avatar of choice. The avatars wear a headset with microphone, headphones and a video camera.
Clip of The Girlfriend Experience during the opening. Background noise of about 300 visitors who watch the avatars and who give their comments.
The avatars follow the instructions of the players. The first evening each player gets three minutes to get to know an avatars. From all over the world people try to log in at the same moment. On other evenings a player gets ten minutes to play with an avatar. Photo: Michel Langendijk
Image from the computerscreen of a player. Photo: Kristin Maurer
The avatars communicate with eachother, with the players and, at times, with the audience through text panels. Photo: Kristin Maurer
A player tries to give instructions to one of the avatars of his choice. Photo: Guido van Nispen
This exhibition is made possible with the support of the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, the Thuiskopie Fonds, and the Liminal Institute.
Troubleshooter
It was awesome, I didn't know at once where it was all about but it gave me some wonderfull ideas and concept to make this happen in a new production called The Fighting Burka Babes. I also liked David with all his stuff and performance afterwards, and all the music landscapes outside: great evening and good athmosfere.