VB Previz #40 – Kiss Me::Kill Me

The world’s greatest virtual-bleeding-heart-liberal Trill Zapatero wants to save the world, and she thinks we can start by teaching peace right here in the virtual world…

As previously documented here on IRez, Zapatero has created the Afghanistan Museum at the Four Bridges project on the VW Grid of Second Life:

http://vaneeesa.com/2010/12/14/afghanistan-museum-update/

http://vaneeesa.com/2010/10/08/afghanistan-museum/

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Four%20Bridges%20Exhibit/245/210/25

Even as she continues to develop the already magnificent Afghanistan Museum, Zapatero is diversifying her Virtual Pro Social production by working on additional projects at Four Bridges.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Four%20Bridges%20Project/93/24/35

And, apparently, Zapatero is still reliving our days back at SLHS licking drugs off the boy’s room floor, because, get this, she thinks I can somehow help her Teach Peace in the virtual world.

Zapatero’s idea is that we are, or ought to be, all the “same,” all sisters and brothers in the family of humankind. Yet we somehow manage to dream up nations or religions or ethnicities or genders or sexual orientations as ways, not of celebrating diversity, but of making US feel better by marginalizing THEM.

She wants to show how silly and arbitrary this all is.

And she asked me to suggest a piece to install at Four Bridges.

I thought, well, if there’s one thing that vampires and bigots agree on, it’s that blood really matters.

Does blood really matter?

I’ve written before about the popular media trope, the paternity test:
http://vaneeesa.com/2010/08/06/drag/#gtca

(actually, that whole “Drag” post explores the idea of identity as an empowering form of self-discovery, vs identity as a marginalizing form of oppression when one group creates its own identity by othering another group)

A popular media trope these days is the paternity test. In this spectacle parties await a piece of paper with some sequence of the letters G-T-C-A on it… given one sequence of letters, the “father” pledges undying love and commits to a lifetime investment of time and money in his pride and joy. Given a different sequence of the letters G-T-C-A the same individual is outraged at the shameless manipulation of this bitch and her bastard child, and storms off vowing never again to cast his gaze upon these wretched sub-humans.

So, the Kiss Me::Kill Me installation would be an exhibit where any two visitors to Four Bridges, friends, lovers, strangers, whatever, can press their fingers on pads to painlessly donate a drop of virtual blood to the Four Bridges Genetic Analyzer, which, after only milliseconds, will deliver a piece of paper to each participant. If the codes match, the machine gives them arousing breath mints and a chance to kiss; if the codes don’t match, the machine gives them virtual squirt-guns and the same person who you just as easily could have kissed, you have the chance to virtually kill (or squirt to death anyway)

By some miracle I actually managed to drag my off-again-on-again husband Marky Mark online long enough for a small demo! BTW, the last previz I roped MM into doing with me was for Fraternal/Identical
http://vaneeesa.com/2010/06/30/previz-fraternal-identical/

It was at least as “unique” an experience as this one. He does sometimes put up with a lot from me. In addition to being a tedious jerk, he is also a sweetheart who’s always there for you when it matters. You can’t really ask for, as Bryan Ferry once sang, “more than this.”

—VB