About

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome! And thank you for visiting the iRez Virtual Salon. My name is Vanessa Blaylock. I am the managing editor of this salon / publication. There are about 36 authors here. I hesitated putting my picture on this page because this salon is the creative effort of so many. If you have a reaction to something on iRez, you probably want to comment on that specific post so that author can interact with you. But I also know that sometimes it’s frustrating to not know what you’re looking at online, or who’s behind it. So as the managing editor, I thought I should put myself forward.

My name is Vanessa Blaylock. I am an avatar. Some people call avatars “pseudonymous identities” which is true. Some people call avatars “anonymous identities,” which is inaccurate. Some people feel that using an avatar or pseudonymous identity is “hiding.” I hope that’s not true. I don’t associate with an “orthonymous identity” or “fleshvatar” or “wallet identity” or “taxpayer identity” because I consider myself an emancipated, intelligent identity. My identity is my own. Or at least I strive to make it so. I believe I am entitled to civil rights.

Gertrude Stein

Exactly 100 years ago, the world’s most famous physical salon, Gertrude Stein’s apartment at 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris, was a big conversation about art, culture, and ideas. Today in the iRez virtual salon we have a global conversation that exists in a virtual place. Here many salon participants explore new perspectives on reality in the 21st century using The Avatar, The MMO, and other Cultural Venues as sites of identity, experience, and community.

“iRez”?

The original title of this publication was I Rez, Therefore I Am. A 21st century adaptation of Descartes’ insight on being. To “rez” or to resolve, is to make a virtual object manifest in space. As Descartes defined his being by his thought, so we define our being by our presence in virtual space. At iRez we don’t judge people by the color of their skin, or their gender, orientation, ableness, body image, or age. Or by their substrate, be it atoms or bits or pixels. If we judge anyone at all, it is on the content of their character, it is on the ideas they contribute in the space of this virtual salon.

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If you’d like to follow iRez by email, we use MailChimp. You’ll get a single email each day at 13:00 GMT with a list of posts from the past 24 hours and an excerpt from each. Each email has a link to unsubscribe yourself at any time.

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• iRez.me/feed

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Terms of Use

iRez by Agnes Sharple, Arthurine Somerset, Botgirl Questi, Canary Beck, Eva Marie, Fuschia Nightfire, George Coghill, Ironyca Lee, Jeremy Owen Turner, Joseph DeLappe, Kathleen Cool, Katie Vizenor, Krista Hoefle, Kristine Schomaker, Lizzie Gudkov, Lizzy Bowman, R. Marie Beedit, Marmaduke Arado, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Nathan Shafer, Pixel Reanimator, Ravanel Griffon, Scarlett Luv, Strawberry Singh, Tabitha Raincloud, Trilby Minotaur, Vanessa Blaylock, Wendz Tempest, Xue Faith, Yordie Sands, et al is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at vanessablaylock.com.
Managing Editor: Vanessa Anne Blaylock
Webmaster: Xue Faith

Disclosure Statement

iRez doesn’t sell advertising, doesn’t sell author or visitor data, and doesn’t place stories for money. iRez does not receive any income at all. The minimal expenses of keeping the site online are paid by Vanessa Blaylock. I, Vanessa Blaylock, don’t sell advertising, data, or place paid stories either. I teach art at a university and sometimes sell works of art to collectors.

For some of the 50 Vanessa Blaylock Company (VBCO) Virtual Performance Art works between April 2009 and July 2013 a variety of Virtual Designers provided wardrobe for our cast. Nothing was traded or paid in exchange for the use of this wardrobe, but in the documentation of the performance works here on iRez we do specify who the designers were and provide links to their shops. Many designers participated across the 50 works, the most frequent being Carina Larsen / Amacci and Kai Heideman / Powers of Creation. While I wouldn’t rule out such designer collaborations in the future, the direction of VBCO’s activities has moved from Performance Art to Public Art, specifically Participatory Public Art. The avatars I’ve worked with are happy to wear the wardrobe you provide, but they’re even happier to design and express their own appearance and identity.

The content on iRez is determined by the individual authors.

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• irez.uk/2012/12/24/irez-world

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page updated: 12 January 2014