We got local talent (highbrow and lowbrow artists) to
show off their projects as avatars in an avatar room
called "The Cellar," which is the virtual singles bar
and the main virtual nite-spot in Traveler. There may
still be some documentation of it at www.grunt.bc.ca
This particular project was a kind of
technical beta-test for a more ambitious
avatar project we had in mind
that gradually became AVATARA.
At that time, we were thinking
about an art installation based on
DigitalSpace Traveler and the
Upanishads. I should add that none
of the footage of the Avatar Talent
Show at the Grunt Gallery was
used in AVATARA. All the footage
in the feature was generated
entirely from AVATARA-related
interviews.
In early 2002, The Centre for
Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A -- Vancouver -- www.centrea.org)
and SAVAC (South Asian Visual
Arts Collective in Toronto --
www.savac.net) commissioned us
to produce and develop a New
Media piece for their group show
about Globalization and its effects
on culture called "ESC."
We had a year to conceptualize the
idea with the guidance of a panel
of internationally known artists,
curators and critics. The critical
panel included: Gu Xiong, Sylvia
Borda, Sadira Rodrigues, Stephen
Tong and Hank Bull. We figured
they wanted our project to have
some "Asian" content as it was for
two Asian Arts collectives.
This is why Donato and myself
turned to the Upanishads for inspiration.
We wanted to show the
Upanishadic qualities of cyberspace
and the metaphysical properties
of existing as an avatar. This
is why we used the Hindu root
word, AVATARA.
I have been personally avatarobsessed
for many years and have
been in DigitalSpace Traveler since
2001. I met the inventor of Traveler,
Steve DiPaola as he just moved
from San Francisco to Vancouver
to teach New Media at Simon
Fraser University (also known as
Tech BC).
I hosted a lecture with Steve at the
University of British Columbia, and
it was there that I discussed the
avatar meta-verse with various
Digital Media students and began
to formulate some ideas with
Donato to make a documentary
about the Traveler community.
Back to Centre A, Donato and
myself were originally going to
make an art installation video-loop
using Traveler. Various avatars
would contemplate the Upanishads
and even quote some of the text.
We were originally thinking that we
were going to have select avatars
read out scripts. If we had continued
along this path, AVATARA
would have taken a much different
shape and would not have become
the documentary it is today.
We came to realize that it would be
much better to have a documentary
about DigitalSpace Traveler and its
inhabitants using the Upanishads
as the primary conceptual framework
for our interview questions.
We tried to coax Upanishadic
answers from the interviewees.
If you look at the DVD menu, there
is a shorter piece called "536 talks
with Pravin Pillay." This is actually
the first interview for AVATARA and
an early sketch for the feature. As
Pravin was one of the other artists
in the ESC group show and grew
up with the Upanishads, we felt he
would be the most ideal interview.
He came to our house to use
Traveler. Turns out, we felt that
although we still wanted to display
his footage, we became more interested
in doing a full feature documentary
about the people who are
real citizens of Traveler. So we
decided to not have Pravin's
footage directly in the documentary.
CP: What was Flick Harrison's role
in the making of AVATARA?
JT: With our commissioned funds
from Centre A, we hired Patrick
"Flick" Harrison as our editor
(www.armedrabble.org)
Flick is a local film critic and filmmaker.
He is quite well known
locally. Highlights of his career
include an R.E.M. video and being
the host videographer for "Road
Movies," which was a show about
Indie film-makers shown on the
Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (CBC). He has also
made some politically motivated
documentaries, one of them about
the NAFTA agreement.
We felt that Flick had become a
consultant as well as editor so we
virtually gave him equal credit in
AVATARA, although Donato and
myself are officially the producers.
CP: How was AVATARA edited?
JT: Throughout the editing
process, we weeded out 16 hours
or so of footage down to just over
one hour of an edited documentary.
We tried to ensure that we fundamentally
preserved the metaphysical
awe of being in this avatar
space while at the same time illuminating
some cold empirical facts
about Traveler itself.
We also insisted that the documentary
remained entirely in-world in
order to avoid breaking the spell of
embodiment and immersion.
Once we had our beta-version
assembled, Donato, Flick and
myself organized a local focus
group (about 30 people) one night
at the 536 HQ to get creative feedback
about the first edit of
AVATARA.
Based on this input, we decided to
stick to our in-world focus and our
minimal audio solution. We also figured
out which parts to highlight or
delete on the basis of the audience's
reactions and criticisms.
CP: What were your specific roles
in the making of AVATARA?
JT: My role was that of the interviewer/
guide in the documentary,
and I chose to be a blue horse
avatar named "Kalki" (named after
the Hindu avatar incarnation of
Vishnu who is supposed to be the
up and coming one with judgements
about the future state of
humankind). I took the horse form
since it is written in some Vedic
texts that Kalki is meant to appear
to us in the form of a white horse. I
chose blue because that happens
to be my favorite colour (alongside
purple).
Donato took the avatar called
"Krishnamurti" and he was the
camera man / avatar. Sometimes,
his avatar looked like a hot-dog
and at other times, he appeared
like a flattened version of the black
Monolith in 2001: A Space
Odyssey. I must add though that
you never see his avatar in
AVATARA. That is, he remained
silent and invisible throughout the
feature but used the avatar to be
the objective eyes behind the interviews.
He only spoke to set up the
camera shots and poses etc. He is
virtually the Director of
Photography (DOP) as well.
Once the first draft of AVATARA
had been completed, we realized
that we had a stand-alone piece
that we wanted to show on a more
widespread scale.
CP: Are you seeing AVATARA as
an artwork to be presented in
museums and galleries and hopefully
to be acquired for a collection
(for example in an edition)?
JT: AVATARA is both a documentary
and a piece of art. We wanted
to make this a hybrid and protean
piece that we can exhibit as a work
of art and/or as a documentary
resource for avatar scholars. We
also see it as a piece of entertainment
for people who are new to
experiencing avatar worlds.
Therefore, we are currently snailmailing
promo DVDs to reviewers,
scholars, critics, film festivals and
art festivals, galleries, museums,
etc.
CP: You mention in the artists'
statement that it is 'one of the first
ever' documentaries of this type --
I'm actually not familiar with any
other documentary done in this
way, could you tell me which other
ones are out there?
JT: We did and are still doing a lot
of net research into this subject
and so far, we only have come up
with ours as an avatar doc that has
been shot only in-world. The other
ones we came across still have
offline components.
Even the so-called "Machinima
Documentaries" posted on the
newsgroup for Machinima.com
have offline segments. I think,
unless proven otherwise, AVATARA
might indeed be the first truly
Machinima documentary.
As for other documentaries, we just
started corresponding with Daniel
Liatowitsch who did the documentary
called Avatars Offline
(www.avataraoffline.com)
We have traded DVDs with him
and have proposed to double-bill
our documentary with his for cinema
screenings although we also
want gallery/museum exposure and
support.
CP: What is your distribution model
for the DVD? Are you selling the
DVD (if so for how much and
where can it be ordered)?
JT: AVATARA is currently independently
distributed (536 productions)
but we are open to the idea
of an official distributor and/or carrier.
We are selling copies of our
DVD for $20 U.S. When supplies
are low, we plan to prioritize scholars,
curators and writers as ideal
consumers for the DVD.
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