Essay: "Talking to Gazira Babeli: Can We Understand Avatars, or One Another, for That Matter?" by Patrick Lichty
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An avatar sits in a room, alone. The walls are charcoal gray, the floors ashen cypress plank. She sits before a screen, with people appearing on it, gesticulating, drawing pictures, and mumbling through the window. In return, the avatar, in this case, one without an operator, tries to respond. One could almost imagine the huge sound/light array from Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the background, and the only thing missing is the sign language. But in this case, one might be led to ask who is the interpreter, and who is the alien, and whether there is any hope for understanding…For Gazira Babeli’s Acting as Aliens, native “code artist” Babeli isolates herself in a cubicle, with the only link to the outside world being a video window connected to a webcam into a gallery in Slovenia. Both the subject and object are placed out of context, and are left across the table from one another, left to try to make a connection with one another. What we are left with is the primordial reflection of the Other in each other’s eyes, and forced to resolve the matter, what emerges from the dialogue?" (Patrick Lichty)
Link: Full essay (Thanks to Domenico Quaranta)