Event
Amanda Turner Pohan, The Living Body Archive of Linqox CrissPost an Event »
City Limits
October 14 - November 19, 2016Info
300 Jefferson St Oakland, CA 94612 Google Map »Reception
October 14, 2016 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm
Eight years ago when MF was in high school, he created a female avatar named Linqox Criss in the online world Second Life. Linqox bought land in the virtual world and built an apartment building. She sold some units but still went into bitcoin debt, and decided to make extra digi-cash as a BDSM cyber-sex worker. Buying and scripting virtual clothes, sex organs, bondage gear, and beauty enhancements exhausted large amounts of time, money, and emotional labor. Linqox Criss has now been abandoned, along with most of the Second Life community of 21.5 million registered users, of which approximately 60,000 remain active. You can register but never die, remaining alive but inactive. Linqox Criss is now an indebted ghost in the server room, a revenant within the body of MF. The Living Body Archive of Linqox Criss is an installation featuring video, sculpture and scent. A video depicts Linqox re-exploring a world she has since abandoned. MF, preferring his identity to remain anonymous, details his experiences through the aid of a female to male transgender friend, who has transcribed and re-performed MF’s responses. As fact and fiction oscillate by way of this re-performed narrative, slippages emerge between the actualities of both MF and Linqox Criss. The systems of debt creation, surveillance and affective labor embedded within Second Life are inscribed within the body of Linqox as much as they are within that of MF. These two bodies, one virtual, one physical, are living archives of technologies for subjectivity production. On the floor of the gallery are two evaporative air cooling units, each emitting a different scent. One emits the smell of MF and the other emits the smell of the avatar, Linqox Criss. The scent of MF was created by recording biometric data of his body using electronic sensors. The data was translated into an algorithm to create the formula for his scent. The scent of Linqox Criss was made by translating the code that created the virtual body of Linqox Criss into a similar algorithm. The two air conditioning units emit these cold scented vapors into the gallery, forming a new aroma as they mingle in the air. Amanda Turner Pohan (USA, 1985) completed her BFA from The School of Visual Arts and her MFA from Hunter College. As an extension of her art practice, Pohan is a co-founder of Temporary Agency, an artist-run nomadic platform for exhibitions and publications, as well as The Bakery Social Club, a monthly gathering for artists and designers.