Potluck Chat: Patrick Lichty

Hi everyone,

This week we’ll be also talking with Patrick Lichty about his collaborative performance work in and out of virtual space.

From www.secondfront.org:
Since 2006 Lichty has been collaborating in Second Front, the first performance art group in Second Life. Second Front quickly grew to its current seven-member troupe that includes Gazira Babeli (Italy), Yael Gilks (London), Bibbe Hansen (New York), Doug Jarvis (Victoria), Scott Kildall (San Francisco), Patrick Lichty (Chicago) and Liz Solo (St. Johns). Second Front has performed extensively both in-world and in galleries and museums. Though the artists perform remotely their performances have been shown live in New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Brussels, Berlin, Vancouver and many other cities. The group has been written about in publications including ArtForum, Art in America, Realtime Arts (Australia), Exibart (Italy) and Digital Art, Second Edition (by Christiane Paul). Taking their influences from numerous sources, including Dada, Fluxus, Futurist Syntesi, the Situationist International and contemporary performance artists such as Laurie Anderson and Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Second Front creates score-based performances and interventions that challenge notions of traditional performance, virtual embodiment and the culture of immateriality.

Lichty is currently doing an honorary virtual residency with EYEBEAM. This project is happening in Second Life, and involves a character named Andy, a collective avatar loosely based on the life of Andy Warhol.

From www.voyd.com:
Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based conceptual artist, writer, independent curator, animator for the activist group, The Yes Men, and Executive Editor of Intelligent Agent Magazine. He began showing technological media art in 1989, and deals with works and writing that explore the social relations between us and media. Venues in which Lichty has been involved with solo and collaborative works include the Whitney & Turin Biennials, Maribor Triennial, Performa Performance Biennial, Ars Electronica, and the International Symposium on the Electronic Arts (ISEA). He also works extensively with virtual worlds, including Second Life, and his work, both solo and with his performance art group, Second Front, has been featured in Flash Art, Eikon Milan, and ArtNews.

From Lichty’s statement:
“Since 1990, I have pursued art and writing that explores how we relate to one another through technology and how we relate to it. This includes art, media, and computer technology. Media are one of the “glues” of civilization, and this glue is as fundamental in representing all aspects of society, culture, and interpersonal relations. I explore this through critical theory, conceptual New Media art, and performance/social intervention. …”

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life
www.secondfront.org
www.voyd.com
http://eyebeam.org/blogs/emma/virtual-worlds-capacity-building