Life imitates art

Photo: Courtesy of Jen Bekmen Gallery

Virtual reality, like flying cars, has always seemed like one of those futuristic prognostications that never quite panned out, but thanks to Second Life, the idea is getting a second wind—and attracting denizens of the art world to boot.

In case you haven’t heard, Second Life is an online VR community where people create avatars of themselves, and, if they want, go into business. SL has its own currency, which you use to buy stuff, including materials to open, say, an art gallery—and that’s exactly what dealer Jen Bekman did a couple of weeks ago in conjunction with a show by James Deavin, a British media artist who “takes” digital photos of Second Life’s eerie landscape. (Like real life, the site is filled with both “natural” and “man-made” features.) Bekman explains that while Deavin’s exhibit inspired her to craft a cyberdouble of her space on Spring Street in Nolita, she aims to stay. “Because it’s three-dimensional, it’s much richer than looking at a Web page,” she says, adding that Second Life reminds her of working for Internet companies during the Web’s early years. “To me, this is like the second coming of the Internet.” Plans for her virtual gallery include digital versions of exhibits being mounted in her Spring Street space, as well as online events, like a re-creation of a symposium she recently hosted with Deavin and a pair of Italian artists, Eva and Franco Mattes, who go onto Second Life to take portraits of its avatars.

Unlike real life, Second Life is not constrained by New York’s cost of living. “My online gallery is about three times the size of my real one,” she says. And the decor includes a virtual reproduction of an Eames desk she always coveted. “I mean, that would cost thousands of dollars I just can’t spend right now.”—Howard Halle

“James Deavin: Photographs from the New World” is on view at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring St between Bowery and Elizabeth St, through Sat 9.

Photo: Eva and Franco Mattes

Photo: James Deavin

Photo: Eva and Franco Mattes

Photo: James Deavin