Digital graffiti

Projected onto the wall of a gallery, like a movie screen, is a
computer image from the online virtual community Second Life: Two naked
feminine avatars passionately embracing. Elle Mehrmand and Micha
Cardenas, who bear better-than-passing resemblances to their virtual
onscreen counterparts, approach the stage in front of the projection
and begin disrobing.

The onstage artists strip to their undergarments and attach heart
rate monitors. A fluctuating rhythmic pulse—the artists’
heart rates—can be heard in the gallery. Flashing lights in the
chests of the onscreen avatars signify that the same pulse beats there
at the exact same rate. Mehrmand and Cardenas embrace, locking lips and
enfolding limbs. The connection between the images onstage and onscreen
are unmistakable, as their hearts beat as one.

“Our performance is a mixed reality performance,” says
Cardenas. “So we’re performing in real or physical space
and virtual space at the same time. … Even though nudity has been
part of art as long as there’s been art, it still pushes
people’s boundaries to see naked people and to see live nude
bodies.” The performance piece challenges viewers’
expectations of traditional gender roles in sexuality—in part
because Cardenas is transgender.

“For me as a transgender girl, does that mean that if I like
girls I’m gay or I’m heterosexual? It’s just not that
clear. I don’t identify really as a lesbian or as a gay person, I
just identify as what I am.”

The piece is a part of a series of collaborative works by Mehrmand
and Cardenas exploring the ways technology affects human relationships.
This piece touches on the idea that in virtual communities, like Second
Life, traditional gender boundaries are blurry or nonexistent.

“Second Life is a place where people are having sex as cats
and dragons and bunnies,” says Cardenas. “It’s not
really clear if someone’s a homosexual or a heterosexual if
they’re a cat having sex with a dragon.”

Artists of tomorrow

Mehrmand and Cardenas have performed this piece, titled
“technésexual,” in a variety of venues and will
perform it at the Nevada Museum of Art on Nov. 14 as part of
Prospectives.09, an international digital arts festival organized by
the University of Nevada, Reno.

Prospectives.09 is a sequel of sorts to the 2006 Reno
Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media. Joseph DeLappe, a digital
media art professor at UNR and the primary organizing force behind both
festivals, says he was happy to ditch the bulkier title of the first
festival in favor of Prospectives, a name he says references the
variety of perspectives represented in the festival—there are
about 35 participating artists from all around the country and as far
away as Chile and Sweden—and the potential for new ideas and new
talent to emerge from the festival, as the majority of the artists are
relatively young graduate students. And “prospecting” is
also evocative of Nevada’s mining legacy.

DeLappe says one of the primary aims of the festival is to
“help put Reno on the map as a place where things like this can
happen.”

According to DeLappe, the majority of local art, as good as it might
be, is still rooted in traditional media. This festival gives art
lovers—both at the university and in the community at
large—the chance to experience what DeLappe calls “the
artists of tomorrow working today.”

The number of artists involved and the diversity of the works makes
this an event with the potential to overwhelm. Fortunately, it’s
been divided up into five thematically distinct elements, each with a
unique venue. Most of the events are free, and all promise to be
out-of-the-box.

Present/Symposium

Thurs., Nov. 12

10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Joe Crowley Student Union Theater, UNR

This free opening day event will be one of the more
traditional—and academic—events of the festival. Artists
will present artworks and discuss their ideas in a symposium format.
Presenters include Aaron Reed from the University of California, Santa
Cruz, the author of interactive digital novels Blue Lacuna and
Whom the Telling Changed—works that take the concept of
Choose Your Own Adventure books deep into the 21st
century.

Exhibit/Interact

Thurs., Nov. 12, through Wed., Dec. 16

Sheppard Gallery, Church Fine Arts, UNR

Opening reception on Thurs., Nov. 12, 6 p.m.

Sven Goyvaerts’ piece Self-Portrait might at first appear to
be a video loop of the artist presented like traditional portraiture,
but, in a twist straight out of a Harry Potter book, the
portrait is able to interact with gallery visitors because it’s
actually a live webcam feed of the artist. It’s a piece that combines
technology with an endurance performance—the artist plans to be
remotely present during all gallery hours—to create a
contemporary twist on an ancient art form.

Self-Portrait is just one of the artworks that will appear in
the Sheppard Gallery portion of Prospectives.09. In addition, art and
music undergraduates from UNR will be exhibiting digital work in the
Front Door and McNamara galleries of the Church Fine Arts
building.

Project: A/V

Fri., Nov. 13, 7 p.m.

Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center, UNR

The Planetarium portion of the festival is the only part that isn’t
free, but at $6 for general admission and $4 for students, children and
seniors, it’s certainly not unreasonably priced. This portion of the
festival will consist of full-dome planetarium video projections, the
presentation of electronic music compositions and a site-specific
audio-visual work by Los Angeles artist Mattia Casalegno.

Casalegno’s piece is intended to capitalize on the unique
properties of a planetarium setting.

“It’ll be like a sensory deprivation tank in
there!” says DeLappe, with clear excitement.

Perform

Sat., Nov. 14, 2 p.m.

Prim Theater, Nevada Museum of Art

This portion of the festival will include Cardenas and Mehrmand’s
performance of “technésexual,” and other
performance-oriented artworks, some of which incorporate elements of
dance, music and video. It’s free, but tickets are limited and
available at the NMA and Sheppard Gallery. Because some material might
not be suitable for minors, the performance is limited to ages 18 and
over.

NetArt

Online gallery of internet-based artworks, games and portfolio
sites.

Opens Nov. 12, archived permanently on festival website

www.unr.edu/art/prospectives09/netart.html

The final portion of the festival is the one most unique to digital
arts—artworks that exist entirely on the internet. Jason Nelson
of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, has created a
videogame—a platform game like, say, Donkey
Kong—constructed out of screen grabs from familiar websites,
like Google, Yahoo and the Huffington Post, and loose drawings that
look like the classroom doodles of a bored student. Fragments of text
and sound combine to create a surreal, oddly addictive experience. It’s
called “i made this. you play this. we are enemies.”

If Halo 3 is like a giant Hollywood blockbuster, “i
made this. you play this. we are enemies.” is like a personal,
idiosyncratic, independent arthouse movie. In fact, videogames, gaming
and play form a sub-theme of the works in the show.

DeLappe says the connection between digital art and digital games is
intrinsic.

“What makes digital arts different from other arts is
interactivity,” he says. “That’s the basic
attraction.”