Doppelganger – refers (as in German) to any double or look-alike of a person, Ghostly double of a living person, a sinister form of bilocation.
Doppelganger is the second in a series of virtual exhibitions held by the National Portrait Gallery. It explores contemporary notions of portraiture in the online digital realm.
Based in Second Life the exhibition will feature the work of five artists interested in exploring the concepts of constructed self, beauty, likeness, identity, truth and illusion in the digital realm of self representation.
If you’re not familiar with Second Life, in a nut shell it’s a free downloadable 3D online environment that is based on the dream of living another life and being whatever you like. How? You create an avatar – a 3D version of yourself/your dream self – by choosing your sex, age and ideal figure. And with this, online, anything is possible!
Walk, fly, or teleport to any of the islands created by thousands of other users all over the world, and start up a text or voice conversation to whoever, whenever.
The exhibition dives in societal fascination of cloning, twinning and the concept of the other self. The artists participating are from Australia, Italy, USA and China. Their works explore and exploit the unique qualities presented by Second Life.
The exhibition will run from 23 October 2009 to 23 March 2010 on the purpose-built Portrait Island within Second Life.
Multimedia interpretations of these works are also available for viewing in exhibition spaces at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.
