THE WHITE ELEVATOR or THE AVATARS OF PARIS
“Les art e le reality: entre les deux il y a a fois de la complicite et de l’antagonisme”–Jean Baudrillard
[Art and reality: Between the two there is a time for complicity and time for antagonism]
“A urinal, too, is a work of art.”–Marcel Duchamps. “Especially a virtual urinal.”
“We both are and are not.”–Heraclitus of Ephesus
1. The Press Conference
December 18, 2008, National Press Club, Washington, DC
“Only my avatar was on display at the Pompidou Center in Paris, along with those of my elevator mates,” says freelance writer Andrea Greene.
“So only our avatars are missing,” she continues, her brown hair a frizzy nest, a purple dress sagging from her plump body, making her look older than her 36 years. “Our real selves are alive and well back in our respective homelands. I in America–right here in this room–the men in China and Algeria, the French woman, of course, in France.”
Reporter from LA Times: “How do I know you’re real?”
“Pinch me if you have any doubts.”
A woman from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch steps forward, asks her what she means by avatar. Wasn’t it a Sanskrit term for divine incarnations? Like all those gods and goddesses-
“I guess you don’t play computer games or watch the ads on TV. ” A thin smile breaks through Andrea’s mask-like face.
Business Editor from Wall Street Journal:: “It means a digital face, like in ads and cartoons. Mounted on a living body or a digitalized body or both. And then projected onto a screen. Like in the L’Oreal and Nexium ads. Even Daimler Chrysler has an avatar of its chief executive, Dieter Zetsche, who answers prospective buyers’ online questions. Sales have risen dramatically.”
“Thank you,” Andrea says.
“So in a sense it’s an incarnation?” Again the woman from St. Louis.
“Yes, but the Pompidou installation had no divine implications–
Interruption from back of room, name unclear: “ Was Christ an avatar?”
“ Do you mean was he a virtual incarnation ? I don’t think they had the technology back then. Anyway, that’s a matter for the theologists. I only wish they’d call off this stupid investigation. Look, I’m a flesh and blood woman. The fate of my French avatar is another story. I’m tired of people confusing the two of us. And I’m sick to death of that crazy blogger, Dr. Bernfeld. A violation of my privacy . Outright theft. But since I no longer have my journal notes, my lawyers say I’ve only a slim chance of winning any suit against him. Besides, they can’t find him anywhere. Maybe he doesn’t exist? Could his blogger self be a kind of avatar?”
Stringer from The Velvet Blade, an Oregon alternative newspaper: “So the white elevator really did stall and then plunge the four of you to a secret floor of the museum?”
“You got it.”
“And they transformed you and that elevator into an installation?”
“Yes, but only our cyber selves. Then they set us free. Exactly as we were before.. Except for occasional pains down the spine and ribs.”
Reporter from Le Monde: Surely you do not blame the French for your pain?
“Non, monsieur. Absolutment non. I am only trying to clarify the events.”
Science Reporter from the Washington Post:: Who wrote the journal notes that were found at the bottom of the Pompidou elevator shaft. You or your avatar?”
“Who do you think?” Andrea’s pale green eyes stare straight through the assembled reporters, as if looking at something far far away. She rubs a finger down the middle of her ribcage, grimaces.
Gil Molloy from CNN: Was there anything good about your avatarization?
“Of course. We never felt hungry, never needed to piss or shit, nobody sweated despite the heat, no smells. And I thought I looked great, my eyes winking and blinking, my slim torso making subtly seductive moves.–”
“But was your avatar dead or alive?”
“Both, of course. Depends if the computer screen was turned on.”
2. Andrea’s Journal Notes
(As reproduced in a blog on October 11, 2006 by Dr. C.T. Bernfeld, Director, Institute of Art and Epistemology, New York, who obtained them from a student who found them
under the elevator shaft while doing research on ancient French plumbing systems)
July 18, 2006. 14:22, European Summer Time
Still on 4th floor of Pompidou. One of the men standing with me in this stifling white elevator–he looks Chinese — pressed the number 5 and the double-arrowed “go button.” The white door closed, but the elevator did not move.
14:23 The man and his taller friend, who has light brown skin , wears a knitted skullcap and a T-shirt decorated with the spiral-shaped word Algerie , smile and shrug. The Algerian looks like Zinedine Zidane, the French soccer star, my new hero. The woman– sharp Gallic nose, perfect skin though she’s probably over 70, a leopard skin shawl around her shoulders– fingers the Swarovsky crystals around her neck. I don’t think she’s praying.
14:24 I’m more puzzled than alarmed. Because of that exhibit, Art and Reality, Qu’elle Difference I just saw. Two languages, linked with the word “and” – hint of peaceful coexistence, even a union, rather than a conflict between art and reality.? Problem: is technology, no matter how artistically used, a form of art? For that matter, are its products real? Worth a feature article–
14:26 Woman pulls leopard shawl across her face, waves her arms and screams something in French that sounds like on est foutu [ed. note:“we are finished”; somewhat obscene] Ignore her! Those montages that move across computer screens, images rapidly shifting so a simple bowl becomes a man on a bicycle who becomes an ancient ruin, the face of John Lennon, a bidet. . .Accordionists like the ones who used to play in the streets of Old Paris when Le Centre Pompidous was still a pile of tubing. Relativism of eternal flux–
14:27 Merde! says the Algerian. . O Zizhou, how could you let me down? If France had won the World Cup this wouldn’t happen. The cup–is it art? Is it real? He taps on the door. I think the Chinese man calls him Walid, who calls the Chinese man Li. Three minutes since Li pressed the button. Nothing. Both men start banging, the woman stamps her sequined shoes, screams something that sounds like foutre. I think it means fuck. Fuck you, lady! You French aging whore! What’s your name–Fifi? That will do.
Lucky I’m not claustrophobic. The men also calm. Fifi slumps over. (Elev. passengers do not look at each other. Peek maybe but no look. Why? Good topic for a feature. ) OK, enough of this crap. Au secours, I try. Li says this must be some trick. A ruse, une duperie, Walid agrees. As in deux. Leave it to the friggin’ French..
I feel dizzy. Hope I don’t pass out from the heat.
14:28 The elevator shakes, seems to rise, thuds to a stop as the white door changes to glass. One of those French glass doors that always open the wrong way and one could easily walk right through the thin glass. Travel article on which way doors open in diff. countries.?
[Two pages appear to be missing here]
July 22: Sure of one thing: this is no dream. A little scary. Why all those cameras and wires and computers? My Timex tells me three or four days have passed. We bang on the glass. A young woman approaches with some special phone. She says in both French and English that we must stop banging. The curator will punish us if we don’t obey.
A white-haired man with blue sunglasses –I guess he’s the curator– breaks in:
You are about to be transformed to an exhibit on art and reality. There is no way to escape You’re being aestheticized! By the best computers in Europe. For the pleasure of our many visitors.
Apparently we ‘re on a floor halfway bet. 4 and 5, a secret floor only open to registered aficionados of the poste-garde, according to the curator. There’s a large screen in front of us, but we can only see the back.
My head throbs. Like it’s splitting in half. And I feel the onslaught of millions of pixels. The men, too. Fifi actually talks English, worries her shawl will be torn. A computer program is capturing us, I don’t know which one. Can only see the back of that enormous screen , a gray rug, a few technicians. They’re laughing for some crazy reason.
O it happens all the time, Fifi says. People on display as if they were mannikins or prisoners. Because of your country. She points at me. But we are prisoners, I say, hostages of Le Centre Pompidou, the city of Paris, The Republique of France, modern technology. .. Slight smiles.
Those dioramas of indians and cavemen at the NY Museum of Nat Hist…so clever, yet nobody except kids like me thought they were real.
Curator says tomorrow we’ll be topic of a lecture. Our avatars or us? Li asks. Qu’elle difference, the curator says. I feel stupid. All of France staring at us. Or some version of us. Dead as well as living. Just like we are. Maybe even Zidane will come with his kids?
They promise to release us from the virtual elevator in a few hours. Just a little more digital tweaking, Ah, so that’s what they’re doing! Like in ads and kiddy movies. Li is right. . Should have known–No wonder I feel split in two. Yet when I look down I see I’m still one person. One person with a deep fissure down my middle.
July 24, 2006
I think we’re being moved to the main exhibition floor.
Already people are jostling to glimpse at that screen. They stare, speak to us but cannot hear our voices. I say something about how it’s rude to stare. No response. Same when Leopard Lady tries. Even though she speaks in French. They can’t hear any of us! But I vaguely hear voices that seem to come from the other side of the screen. Two male,two female.
And we can definitely hear the voices of the viewers.
Look, someone says with a British accent, there’s an American inside. I can tell from the way she wears her bum bag around her neck instead of her bum. Her companion laughs.
Someone else says we look like robotic monkeys. Cartoon characters!
Not funny . None of this is funny. I and my lift-mates have become a work of art ! Depending how you define art.
‘A matter of politics,’ Li says. “Rice bowl can be artistic as a temple. Depends how you perceive .”
“Yes, but the bowl is still a bowl, not an idea of a bowl or cyber version of a bowl,” Walid answers.
I think he may be onto something.
Fifi moans, a long moan like a hurt swan. She feels she’s missing part of herself. Can’t stand her, but all of us feel a part of us missing. Make that half. . .
Walid pulls a stale baguette from a pocket. “ Vive la France! Anyone hungry?”
“That’s a cheap baguette . I think you bought it at a Monoprix near where all those
dirty Muslims live.”
Walid makes a fist. Aims it at Fifi who cover her face with lavender veil she pulls from purse. Li and he begin to wrestle. I want to leave.
Young woman with phone says no food allowed and proceeds to zap the baguette with some sort of laser that penetrates the glass door. Actually no one is hungry
[pages missing]
3. How Andrea Felt When Released
(from additional notes obtained by Dr. C.T. Bernfeld)
September 14, 2006
Free at last. Before fleeing the museum we glance at the screen that displays our avatars. I have black hair, pulled back in a chignon. I’m thin, wearing a black silk gown , shimmy and shake, blink my dark eyes. They look like merlot grapes. I’m holding nothing except a quill pen.
Li wears a gray business suit, studies a stock table from the Shanghai Bourse. His eyes blink back and forth at Walid the Algerian. He’s got a knitted skullcap on his head but more than ever looks like Zidane.
Fifi’s face is veiled by fringed leopard skin .She’s cursing in French and smoking a Gallois; her sequined shoes tapping the floor. Spectators find her behavior particularly amusing. Some even whistle at her.
On a thin scrap of paper, probably the next day
Mon dieu, I’ve lost my journal.
4. A Reply to Bernfeld’s Blog: October 4, 2006
How do we know these notes are genuine? Does Andrea know you have them and have posted them here? Who are you, anyway? I don’t think you know much about avatars. They’re not the same as doppelgangers or alter egos, though loosely related. But they’re not so simple to create as your notes–or you–suggest. You need to set up a VRML file
taking into account File, Size, Scale, Lighting, Origin Point, Direction and Compression. Your must not exceed the size required to make your avatar seem proper amongst others and in proportion to the real world. Try to use only human size avatars; don’t try to meet them partway between earth and Neptune or inside a fingernail. I highly recommend the DOS program Gzip, but doubt the French technicians had access to it.–KewpieGirl39
5. The Aftermath
As those who have followed the story of the White Elevator know, the avatars were shipped from France to America after the Pompidou exhibit closed. Unfortunately, after being unloaded at JFK airport, the computer crashed, deleting the show’s potential American opening at MOMA. Probably because Homeland Security handled the crate so roughly. As if we now have to worry about virtual terrorists. . .
A few days ago, on March 8, 2007, a letter appeared in the Washington Post’s Open Forum:
To the Editors: As one of the people who stood that day in the White Elevator,..sometimes I wish I could exchange my “real” life, especially now, with that of my avatar. before the unfortunate event at JFK. Nothing to do but dance a bit, entertain the tourists who passed by the screen. The scene would be easy to reproduce–but how can I find my elevator mates now that we’ve all scattered?
I returned to Paris a few months later and there it was-:the original white elevator on the 4th floor. I entered–gingerly, of course– pressed #5. Nothing but a swift smooth ride up.
So I pressed 0, French for the ground floor. Again, a perfectly ordinary elevator ride. So the elevator itself was not rigged for virtuality, only myself and my three co-riders that day back in 2006. What does this all mean? It’s beyond Being and Nothingness.. My gratitude to anyone who can help me find my former elevator-mates. I’ll pay their plane fare to Paris.
Sincerely,
Andrea Greene, Alexandria, Virginia
Nobody responded. As time went on, Andrea missed her avatar more and more, as well as the avatars of her former lift-mates. She dreamt about them nightly. Always her slim black silk self became a nasty black witch, broomstick and all. Li and Walid were sometimes rescuers, sometimes terrorists. Once Fifi sang “La Vie en Rose” just like Edith Piaf, but otherwise appeared as a wild leopard. If only Andrea could arrange to remake the original program. . .
In December, 2007, she ran onto the street wearing only a black silk sarong. The psychiatrist who treated her after her arrest for indecent exposure claimed Andrea Greene, 37, suffered from an extreme form of split personality, her everyday self a decent but ordinary woman who sometimes published articles in local newspapers, her “avatar self” an idealized, highly aesthetic but unattainable version of herself.
“The longer the patient is unable to find that avatar, “ Dr .J, aka Dr. B, wrote in his clinical report, “the more despondent she becomes. I told her her missing double would never be found and that was the whole point: better to crave an absent, indeed, in the ordinary sense, non-existent idealized self than slog along with no idealized self. at all.”
“Of course,” he added, “no one has yet defined the word real. Likewise the word art.
Technology is only a means to an end at best. For the time being, I advised Ms. Greene to avoid all elevators: take the stairs even if it meant climbing hundreds of flights. Pt. appeared anxious, asked if she could take an escalator if one was available. No, I had to tell her, escalators were as dangerous as elevators when it comes to rising hopelessly beyond the floor on which one happens to be.
One last point: I find it strange that no one had ever asked Ms. Greene why she took that white elevator in the first place, since she only wanted to ascend one level. I broached the question and she replied in a firm voice that she was so tired from walking so much to view an exhibit called ‘Art vs. Reality’ along with some French words, that she simply wanted to rest her feet a bit.” –Sidney Jalowicz, M.D., aka Dr. C.T. Bernfeld of the New York Institute of Aesthetic Epistemology, aka The People’s Psychiatric Clinic of Bethesda,Maryland.
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