Title: Second Life with Chris Marker /
Year: 2009
Subjects: Marker, Chris,; Guest, Haden.; Virtual museum exhibits.; Surrealism.; Museum exhibits.; Documentary films France Production and direction.; Art; Animation (Cinematography); Art, Modern; Education in art.
Abstract: Video recording of Second Life of Chris Marker, a live event on the web (May 16, 2009) in which the French filmmaker Chris Marker and the director of the Harvard Film Archive, Haden Guest engaged in an online conversation via the internet portal and website Second Life. At the time of this conversation, Chris Marker was in Paris and Haden Guest was standing in front of the Harvard Film Archive audience in the HFA cinematheque in Harvard University. The conversation took place between their avatars on Second Life. Their avatars along with other visitors to Second Life toured Chris Marker's virtual museum and participated in a conversation about Marker's work and his reasons for embracing this new technology. The virtual museum where the conversation took place was created by Marker as part of the (non virtual) exhibit, Chris Marker A Farewell to Movies at the Museum of Design in Zurich. Marker´s museum hovers motionless above the virtual archipelago Ouvroir, a futuristic geography of mysterious islands, sculptures and uncanny architecture. Over time, Ouvroir has continued to transform and expand as an interactive environment with new structures and exhibition spaces appearing regularly and often containing content related to Marker’s work. Always at the very cutting edge of technological innovation, Marker long ago fully embraced the digital and the virtual, producing in 1996 perhaps the only lasting and artistically ambitious CD-ROM, the fabulous Immemory, which explored Marker’s fascination with the mirages of memory, history and the moving image.