Modeled Bodies

I found out that it is really difficult to have modeled bodies within the environment... and if I wanted modeled bodies to reflex those of Beecrofts design... I would need to make them in a CD program myself... and import them into the world.

I have no idea how I could do that!

Project Isues

I've been trying to follow my original idea for this project as closely as possible. It seems though that my lack of experience in the SL world has set me back quite a bit. In order to execute my original project, I still need a piece of land or some type of gallery space to exhibit in.

I also found out that I cannot use fake models for the piece itself unless I was to construct them in 3D myself. As I do not have the appropriate skills for such a practice I will instead need to list help from a more experienced avatar and instead use avatar models (real people modeling with their avatars). I am going to try and recruit all different types of avatar bodies, while at the same time keeping the bodies close to the aesthetic presented by Beecroft (high heels, pale while skin, so on...).

As I said in a previous post I am attempting to contact a few individuals within SL that run a Transgender Safe Haeven to use their land as a place to exhibit the show.

If that doesn't work than I will try and inlist the help of a friend to help me create my own gallery space with appropriate funds of course. (I have found that it really isn't cheap making and uploading things within this virtual world)

For now I plan to keep exploring the world and critquing the functions of the world within context to constructed ideas of Utopian Life within SL.

Possible Help and Place To Exhibit!

Well it took me awhile but I think I may be in contact with some individuals that may be able to help me with the project. There is a transgender sancuary within SL reserved especially for trans identified individuals and others to socialize in a safe environment.

They have lots of room and may allow me to use some of it. We'll see!

LGBT Art in Second Life

I decided to look for a place that I could possibly show this work within the virtual world... since my idea of buying my own virtual land and building a gallery ended up being very costly on the RL pocketbook...

A search of LGBT Art Galleries is really nothing more than a search for Erotic Gay Male art. Even X-mas themed gay erotica is on display!


A search for more mainstream galleries came up with... even more interesting results...

Oh what do you know? Heterosexual fantasy erotica art...


I did find one place... It looked a lot like the Legion of Honor...

Perhaps not the same type of work shown in the Legion of Honor though....


What to do what to do?

Real Estate

As part of the project I needed to find a location that would be suitable to house my performance piece. It had to be large enough to house several avatars and remain a functional space for visitors in the SL world to interact in.

First things first. Real Estate is expensive! Ridiculously so! Upwards of $30 for property alone!

It was also interesting to see so many reality companies in SL. There seem to be huge expanses of commercialized digital land just waiting to be bought up by avatars.

You can choose your own ideal themed plot of land. Tropicana? Desert? EVEN OUTER SPACE!!

I dont think it is going to be easy to find a place to house anything any time soon. But this is interesting to document none the less.

Queer Bodies

I was interested in investigating the queer bodies that may reside within the virtual space. I did general searches to find such areas mostly coming up with LGBT bars and sex clubs. It was interesting how much of this virtual environment is dedicated to sex. There is a whole only virtual sex industry ranging from sex furniture to massive virtual sex clubs.



Even within the sex clubs there was advertising for perfect bodies... and even perfect phallic additions.


These 'sex beds' were espeically interesting in the fact that they were models of beds that had these round objects that you clicked on to perform sexual actions with another avatar. These 'sex beds' were created for the intent of gay male sex. There were many different kinds of bed for variations in sexual intercourse. Very odd.

More beds..Also found a random gay dating service...

My New Skin

After shopping for quite sometime... I came to two selections for skins. They were far from adonis like but I decided they would do.

I purchased a female skin first, and than made a copy of it in male form. I was interested in the two bodies and was given some ideas to investigate interactions with people in the different gender bodies.

'Female' form

'Male' Form



As I have investigated the presence of bodies more I have begun to become more aquainted with the details of manipulating my virtual body. The body can be molded into almost anything I want, in some cases people fly around as dragons.

Constructing My Body

As I continued my journey into Second Life I quickly found myself needing a skin, a set of appearance that was not just the default male model given to me.

After a quick search in the massive database of SL information I found a boutique specializing in skins. I arrived at the boutique and was surprised by the sheer advertising of this virtual stores virtual merchandise.

The particular boutique I went into seemed to specialize more in making 'womens skins and apparel', each of which were perfectly sculpted slender and tall with exaggerated features. They looked like virtual barbie dolls of all natures. There were never any queer bodies within the boutique only the binaried bodies.

Oddly enough there was no nudity allowed within the boutiqe's floor. You were only allowed to dress down in dressing rooms much like within the RL... which I thought odd since there were half naked men and women all over the merchandise. I was particularly interested in the skin packages that were for sale - entire new body looks for sale.. Hell I could even look like brittany spears if I wanted.
Thats all.

First Impression and Investigation

I turned on Second Life for the first time this week and was surprised at the complexity of the process. The mere acting of crafting an image of oneself is incredibly more difficult that I had originally thought.

Within the first few minutes of setting up my avatar I was confronted with questions about my 'RL' (real life), such as my name and my gender. I was already alerted when I was asked for my gender and was perplexed as to why that information would even be necessary as I was seeking to create an artificial self within artificial space - what function does my gender play in the creation?

When entering the world I was bombarded with ADs and large pictures of perfect male and female bodies with clothing adds all around.


As seleted on my real life questionare my avatar appears as male. No default null body, just the gender according to your real life assigned gender.

After being frustrated with trying to figure out how to move about the world I decided to end my session.

Problematic Utpoia: Second Life & The Utopian Image

As the boundaries between flesh and virtual worlds begin to merge we have begun to move closer and closer to a digitally represented society, a society where the cores of our personalities and characteristics are represented in digital space, in a conceived “Utopic” representation of life free of the socially constructed boundaries or norms of the flesh world. Or is it? With this systematic blurring of flesh and digital spaces there has been a transference of ideologies established within the flesh world, that seem to go against any representation of a Utopic digital society. The internet, and virtual platforms a like have under gone an identity crises, the notions of free social democracies and loving Utopic societies have vanished under the realizations of users that the so called 'freedom of the net' has been severely limited and has created its own discriminations and conflicts, often reflecting that of the flesh world.

In this project I will attempt to explore the roles of identities on the virtual platform of Second Life, dealing with the notions of gendered identities and tackling the lack of the 'Utopic Digital Society' that has been marketed since the conception of the internet and virtual reality simulators a like.

While the core concept of the project has been established its execution is still a little blurry but will most likely adhere to some form below:


1.Appropriation of Vanessa Beecroft's VB46 within a Second Life virtual installation. This installation however will celebrate the differences in gendered identities by showing all the different forms of gender within flesh space and cyber space.
1.Could take form of avatars posing within the virtual installation space, each taking on a similar appearance to Beecroft's VB46, yet uniquely different in its celebration of varying gendered identities.
2.As a gallery installation the viewer would approach a computer setup that would be logged onto a 'gendered neutral' avatar and walk about the installation space virtually through the use of the actual computer installation.

The goal would eventually be to place this into an installation in the gallery space and allowing viewers as I said, to log on to the virtual installation and view the piece. There would also be plans to engage the people already connected in Second Life too – this plan would change over time.