Harvard theater director Liz Diamond will collaborate with Cheang to guide the group as they dramatize elements drawn from real-life sexual assault cases, including that of the project's namesake Teena Brandon, a transsexual who was murdered in Nebraska in 1993. She feels that virtual worlds like LambdaMOO can provide a new and more appropriate arena for dispute resolution. Someone who commits a violation in cyberspace shouldn't necessarily be subject to consequences in real courtrooms. Something like the LambdaMOO ' cyberrape ' was appropriately settled in a virtual court. What is a violation in one world might not be in another.
Virtual penalties can translate from one world to the other as well.
The August public event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the first time since the Brandon project began on 20 June that Cheang will be able to interact with both a live and a Net audience. My work has always fused actual and virtual space. Netizens need nothing more than an Internet connection to tune in to the mock trial. But Cheang also wants to include a public that has no access to Net technology. Anyone in the Harvard area who's interested can physically attend the staged trial.