SUPERSCHMOOZIO
c1999 Jack Waters
THE GAME OF THE INTERNATIONAL ART MARKET
Playing Schmoozio online
An online version of Schmoozio is played via a visual chat format called Thepalace. These scheduled events are currently hosted by Desktop Theater, a form created by Lisa Brenneis and Adriene Jenik. Characters are manipulated through the use of "avatars".
To find out more about desktop theater and thepalace go to http://www.desktoptheater.org
To view quicktime
movies of past palaceschmoozio events click here:
Part
One. Part
Two. Part
Three. Part
Four. [to view, you must have Quicktime
installed]
Check Franklin Furnace's site for postings on upcoming live schmoozio events.
Description:
In palaceschmoozio we are dealing with issues of how "character", "personality",
"role", and "player" are defined and how those definitions are transcended.
This is closer to the game of life than a game as we traditionally understand
it. There are no unbendable rules, but there is a very complex set of inter-related
and potentially shifting conditions. There is a temptation to physicalize
the conditions to closer replicate waking life (so called "reality"), such
as the idea of bringing virtual artwork (which is actually actual) into play,
building virtual studio and gallery spaces, the restriction or permissions
to these spaces, giving passwords to verify the status of a given artist/player,
constructing "bots", and so on. In attempting such replication palaceschmoozio
opens questions of how consistent these reality constructs really are. Whatever
develops will remain an experiment as opposed to a product. Here the central
tool is verbal intercourse, the beauty of which is that the only real condition
required of players is that they engage their imaginative faculties based
on how they perceive that structured reality, in opposition, or in concert
to how they assume others do.
Here a central irony arises from the play between the flexibility of persona and the immutability of distinctive personality: Though the contacts' preference traits remain pretty much constant, an artist/player who shifts shape is still the same player; when a contact changes avatars they become a different character.
A frequent response I get when showing this project is about how academia is represented in schmoozio. Mostly from university people. They want to know if I really think academia is a lame, safe refuge from the perils of the professional world. I say that in constructing a virtual social milieu I have to define certain limits that in this case my choice comes from my subjective perspective of what a "professional" artist might do in building a career. You could do a superschmoozio based on the university system in general, the intercollegiate debate circuit, from the perspective of the gallerist, collector, curator, critic. It's more about how social interaction and business dealing interact using "art" as a premise.