Interview with Portrait Watanabe at the Doppelgänger Exhibit

A short time ago I wrote a post about the opening on October 23^rd, of the Doppelgänger exhibit at “The National Portrait Gallery” in Second Life. This is the gallery’s second exhibit in a series of exhibitions which explores, “contemporary notions of portraiture in the online realm”. The exhibit is hosted on Portrait Island within Second Life, and features the work of; Gazira Babeli, Andrew Burrell (Nonnatus Korhonen), Cao Fei (China Tracy), Patrick Lichty (Man Michinaga) and Adam Nash (Adam Ramona), Christopher Dodds (Christo Kayo) and Justin Clemens (Jack Shoreland). The exhibition opened on the 23^rd of October and runs through the 23^rd of March 2010. Multimedia interpretations of these works are also available for viewing in exhibition spaces at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. I met with exhibit organizer, Portrait Watanabe at the gallery one evening, where she graciously answered my questions about the exhibit and the gallery.

Nazz: How’s it going with the exhibition, good traffic I hope?

Portrait: Yes it’s been really great! I’m still discovering groups to approach about it but the word of mouth seems to be beginning to bring people in

Nazz: That’s good news; I’ve passed the link on to a several people as well, plus a post in Second Arts. When we chatted the other night you’d mentioned that the exhibit was a year in planning, what was it that took the most time to complete?

Portrait: I suppose the longest part was preparing our Gallery’s council or board for the idea of an exhibition in second life. The island build began about three months ago and gradually evolved as the artists created their works.

Nazz: Then this is the gallery’s initial foray into second life and virtual worlds?

Portrait: Yes, I think it may even be the first cultural institution in Australia to do so. Having said we needed to prepare our board – they and our Director have been amazingly supportive of this move.

Nazz: What was it that brought you into second life?

Portrait: Initially I suppose I wanted to find out what this virtual reality looked like having grown up on trashy films like the lawnmower man. I did what many people do originally and stayed for a few hours then didn’t come back for ages. Once I did a bit more research on the artists working in Second Life I thought it would be a perfect place for an exhibition about digital identity.

Nazz: How long have you been associated with the gallery?

Portrait: I’ve been with the portrait gallery for six years, however only three of those as the online manager. This is our second online exhibition – the first was a series of animated self portraits by 12 Australian animators

Nazz: The exhibit here is essentially about digital identities, how did that develop for you as a concept for doing an exhibition?

Portrait: The Portrait Gallery has always been interested in challenging traditional notions of portraiture. Over the past few years i have become interested in the projection of identity into online spaces; in particular our adoption of these spaces as the ‘third space’.

Nazz: What are the traditional notions of portraiture that this exhibition challenges?

Portrait: A lot of our audiences still expect portraiture to take the form of an oil painting of an important politician or explorer … or at the very least to be figurative. This exhibition explores the notion of data as a conduit of identity.

Nazz: With the concept of digital identity in hand, how were the artists selected for the exhibition?

Portrait: I researched artists working in SL whose ideas, artwork and performances suggested an interest in this theme. They have been an amazing group to work with – each has produced work that extends the ideas of the exhibition in different directions.

Nazz: Can visitors at the real life gallery see for themselves what has been done by the artists here in Second Life?

Portrait: Yes, while the works were developed for display on Portrait Island we wanted to give our real life visitors the opportunity to experience the works at the Gallery so we invited the artists to produce extensions of their works for display in our real life project spaces.

Nazz: Have they each responded with something?

Portrait: Yes, each artist produced a different interpretation of their work for the real life space – some produced machinima, Andrew Burrell provides a real time view of his work through the eyes of an avatar – you can see him floating around above us. Patrick also provided QR codes for audiences to download his screen tests to their mobile devices and the Autoscopia collective produced a composite portrait of the RL artists which compares the ideas they explore in their second life work with the 19th century tradition of composite photography. The works operate across many platforms and I think this draws attention to the fact that the perceived line of the computer screen between real life and second life is just that – a perception.

Nazz: Most lines are “perceived”,

Portrait: Indeed.

Nazz: The length of time for the exhibit is five months, why so long?

Portrait: I wanted to give people time to discover the exhibition – including those who may never have been to Second Life before. It will take us a little while to market the space to the real life media. We see Portrait Island remaining as a display space for the gallery and have invited artists to submit proposals to display work here that deals with the themes of identity and portraiture.

Nazz: Excellent idea, the blurring of identity will only intensify in the next several years. Are there any plans to utilize other virtual worlds?

Portrait: Yes most definitely. Second Life was selected for this exhibition because of the real life media it has received and its large population base. But I am keen to explore other platforms for future exhibitions.

Nazz: You’re closing thoughts or comments?

Portrait: I would just like to thank the participating artists and our island designer and encourage as many people as possible to come and see the exhibition. And thank you Nazz for your time!

The featured works from the participating artists from are noted below:

iGods, 2009 by Gazira Babeli: Holds up a critical mirror to ‘real life’ from within Second Life and reminds us that “in Second Life, DNA is code and in virtual worlds this code can be replicated or borrowed”.

temporary self portrait in preparation for the singularity, 2009 by Andrew Burrel (aka Nonnatus Korhonen): A virtual mnemonic device containing narratives of the artist’s life, both remembered and imagined. The viewer is asked “to wonder if the site of the self can be shifted to a place completely removed from its traditional abode somewhere within (or as a part of) the body”.

Autoscopia, 2009 by Adam Nash (aka Adam Ramona), Christopher Dodds (aka Christo Kayo), and Justin Clemens (aka Jack Shoreland): This work “examines the derangement of identities through the projection of our personalities into digital environments”.

iMirror, 2007 by Cao Fei (aka China Tracy): On loan from the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Cao Fei’s three-part, documentary-style machinima, reminds us that “real emotions are difficult, if not impossible, to omit from human encounters”.

CodePortraits, 2009 by Patrick Lichty (aka Man Michinaga): Patrick Lichty’s CodePortraits, “becomes a metaphor for recognition; of the human tendency to identify with faces, be they real or virtual”.