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In the mid 2000s, the 3D virtual world computer game Second Life became a medium for many artists, such as Cao Fei and Jon Rafman. Fei planned cities in the role-playing game as an avatar called China Tracy, a fantasy character through which she could virtually be someone else. Rafman, however, took the online simulation to an extreme, taking viewers on tours through the digital world with the avatar of the “Kool-Aid Man.” Where most users stuck to human- or animal-like avatars, Rafman existed as a corporate-created jug of red liquid with a face. Kool-Aid Man in Second Life proposes the ability of a human user to exist, and act, as an image. More recently, Rafman is making waves with his work with VR headset gaming company Oculus Rift, like international art events at NADA 2014 or the 2016 Berlin Biennale, where he recreates the viewer’s physical surrounding and then morphs and destroys it.
Engaging with the visual tropes of a different online community is artist Andrea Crespo, who is inspired by DeviantArt, an online home to many visual subcultures. Her work, which was shown at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in early 2015 and the Swiss Institute in New York later in the year, fleshes out the characters of Cynthia and Celinde, two avatars who share a body. The exhibition text for the Swiss Institute exhibition posits, “it seems possible the characters exist solely for each other, as though they might have drawn themselves.” Like Rafman, Crespo uses online communities to explore the potentials of post-human identity making, and experiments with creating a sense of independent sentience in her work.
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