VB22-1/2 – Avatar Suicide

VIRTUAL BLACK ROCK CITY, NEVADA — With Burn2 set to open in less than 24 hours, one plot here on the playa stands completely barren: Burning Man – Bordello27. This is the parcel that was to have been the site of VB22 – The House with the Ocean View. It was to have been a 9-day durational performance by Vaneeesa Blaylock / Company, instead this site lies dormant, a barren parcel of scorched earth.

Ms. Blaylock, apparently already disillusioned by Linden Lab appears to have mentally snapped on being banned from performing her work by the Burning Man organization.

Blaylock, once a rising star in the Second Life art pantheon, but for some time now a lackluster artist performing tedious, repetitive, predictable works to the boredom of ever shrinking audiences, appears depressed beyond consolation.

Whether her motivation is indeed the disturbing “all we care about is money” ideology of Linden Lab and Burning Man as she claims, or in fact her own failure to attract a large audience or ever have Hamlet write one word about her, Blaylock has vowed to “End my meaningless second life.”

The despondent, failed artist stated that she would commit Avatar Suicide at Noon SLT on Saturday 16 October 2010, at the precise moment that Burn2 opens and her VB22 performance was set to have begun. Blaylock has vowed to put a rope around her neck and throw herself off the lighthouse she lives in at Biscuit Bay, An Li:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/An%20Li/71/128/19

In a long, rambling, mostly incoherent statement, Blaylock, appearing with Kaczynski-like hair that appeared not to have been washed in several days, covered in playa dust, and wearing no makeup, stated:

A year ago I thought Linden Lab was a great company, and Burning Man / Burning Life was a great organization. Today I understand that neither organization has a soul or ethics and that their guiding star is “kill for money.” It’s unbelievable how naive I was, and how much has changed in a short year. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat around a campfire making s’mores and retelling the Second Life foundation myth of Philip Rosedale having his epiphany at Burning Man.

What total bullshit.

I cannot believe how stupid I was to believe their lies.

Burning Man is a week-long party where rich (mostly ugly) hippies get naked, get stoned, have sex, make a lot of fire, and “blow shit up,” enjoying their ill-gotten fruits of having raped the public the other 51 weeks of their yearly lives.

Nobody ever had an epiphany there.

I may be ending my life, but at least I will never again have to suffer the humiliation of having my life and my work judged by a man who neither understands nor cares about contemporary art, and who consumes an almost inconceivable daily dosage of steroids and testosterone.

Blaylock went on in this tone for at least another hour, pausing occasionally to bite into one of the lemons she carried in a small basket, but this excerpt should give you a fair understanding of her degraded mental state.

Will Blaylock really commit Avatar Suicide at noon on Saturday? Or is this just another pathetic cry for help? Only time will tell.

Blaylock, mumbling almost incoherently said, “Everyone is invited to come enjoy the fun.”
Noon SLT Saturday 16 October 2010
http://slurl.com/secondlife/An%20Li/71/128/19