dLux MediaArts sponsored an event with for the August 3rd Art After Dark night of the 2012 Sydney Biennial with Warren Armstrong, Andrew Burrell and Virta-Flaneurazine. On Pier 2/3, the Sydney electronic collective, Filthy Children, played as free prescriptions of the mobile version of VF were handed out to willing participants. Apparently hundreds have taken the experimental medicine and benefited from its results. If you are there, the secret is you can get a drug dose simply by downloading the Layar Augmented Reality application and searching for the layer, “Dose”. In fact the best way to take the drug is to access the layer “Bufo Colonies” which will reveal a small outgrowth of the Stedelijk Museum colony Bufo toads which can be licked on your phone screen or iPad.
Remember also, that although the experience has pleasurable side effects, the medication is primarily developed to help with problems of Wanderlust Deficit Disorder (WAD), a form of Internet addiction. This is an unapproved virtual medication and at this point Virta-Flaneurazine cannot take responsibility for its use or affects.
A evening moment with the 33 1/2 RPM Sunset Bufo Toads in the process of colonizing the ICA Boston. apparently they have adopted a record skip associated with the “Record” show there.
It seems that the Sex and Death Colony hatched quietly in the Sydney Botanical Gardens has gotten out of control and is spreading to a series of smaller Australian towns (d/lux MEDIA ARTS). Colonies seem to be appearing westward and southward with no apparent rhyme or reason. My colleague there, Warren Armstrong, (the organizer of (Un)seen Sculptures), is vigorously monitoring the situation and calls weekly on Saturday nights to let me know the conditions. It’s uncanny that this subspecies should spread in a country that has been plagued by its ancestor. This is I suppose, a similar sort of infestation, with all good intentions of those of us at VF, looking for a means to free internet living. Warren has ambitiously set up a site to track what he calls “Bufo’s Progress“.
The important lesson we might take from the Virta-Flaneutazine Bufotoad outbreak, is that it exposes the permeability of the institutional immune system. We are not sure if this posses any threat to public class and social order, but we understand that the Centers for Rube Control and Prevention in Atlanta are investigating the situation.
In 2008, researches at the Virta-Flaneurazine Laboratories identified a hardy specimen of bufo virtanus for release it on a test parcel near the Virta-Flaneurazine clinic for research purposes. With no natural predators and an abundance of suitable habitat, the Bufo Virtanus soon reproduced vigorously and began spreading to neighboring SIMs. In July of this year researchers were startled to find that some Virta-Flaneurazine dosage tests resulted in an unexpected breaching of the software barrier beyond virtual worlds and into other online social networks. Although the exact cause of the most recent breach into augmented space is little understood, we can assure your readers that we are doing everything scientifically possible to address public concerns. Although our licensing agreement and lobbying efforts protect us from liability in the matter, eradication efforts are under way. In the meantime, we would discourage touching the toads until we know more about the effects of its toxin under augmented conditions. Ingestive contact, commonly known as “licking toad,“ runs the risk of severe neurological effects such as paralysis, seizures, blurred vision, and dizziness.
Virta-Rat, the clinical trial’s resident test subject, played a significant role in the fabled transition from virtual reality to augmented reality. Virta-Rat was first spotted on users cell phones shortly after a powerful new black market version of Virta-Flaneurazine surfaced in the hutongs of central China in the weeks following the Xi’an clinical trials. Known by its street name “Blue Dragon,” the drugs unregulated illicit use is thought to be one of the earliest recorded examples of network barrier breach, a troubling phenomenon which is all to common place in 2012.
Yesterday, I was enjoying the MoMA exhibition, Abstract Expressionist New York, when, all of a sudden, as a museum visitor posed too close to the Barnett Newman, an AR Bufo Toad’s legs burst through the painting. I managed, through a quick series of iPhotos, to stitch together this incisive moment in all its composite splendor! Even though Newman intended these paintings to be seen up close, a guard promptly shepherded the woman away, unaware of the monster protruding all around her. In retrospect it does not surprise me that these two artworks, in two coinciding collections, should be intersecting. The MoMA’s explication of the work states, “Newman’s largest painting at the time of its completion, is meant to overwhelm the senses.” VF’s Bufotenine sublime!
But, what to do? These pests of the museum are improperly multiplying! They can be seen at times everywhere in the building, on all the floors, in the stairwells, in the bathrooms, in the sculpture and the painting. No doubt there will be a move towards extermination. Hopefully, in the end, a sole infertile healthy specimen will be retained for the AR collection. More on Bufo Virtanus Heroicus Sublimis
A new variant of Virta-Flaneurazine, VF betaAR, has been successfully developed. It is produced from the skin secretions of bio- engineered and programmed hybrid Bufo toads. When areas of these toads are touched, the resulting reaction causes a wandering viewer to see things appearing from virtual worlds and other sources on the Internet. This appears to be an integrated and compelling conscious experience. This perception can be simultaneously viewed on an iPhone or Android device using Layars or other augmented reality software.
Because of the surprising success of our first test at MoMA, October 9, we will be entering a wider human test phase November 14 at BETA Spaces 2010 in Bushwick, Brooklyn (NY). The drug tests will be part of an art program, Bushwick AR Intervention. Though the parameters of the effects are somewhat limited at this point, this appears to be a very important step towards complete integration.
A huge AR sculpture we made of a the Bufo Toad (the VF mascot, if you will) is to be installed in the Museum of Modern Art Saturday afternoon, October 9. Although we understand that this will be part of a permanent collection located at the museum, we are not quite sure where it will be placed. We had planned it for the Atrium Gallery but the curators of the show,”We AR in MoMA,” Sander Veenhof & Mark Skwarek, feel it might need to be placed in the lobby. The sculpture has the VF logo inscribed on its back and has the potential to allow visitors to climb up to this area and through contact receive a full dose of Virta-Flaneurazine. New readers to this blog might not know that the Bufo Toad toxin, bufotenin, secreted from the amphibian’s back, is a known psychotropic substance to humans, though it can cause seizures in animals. The effects and molecular structure of Bufotenin was an inspiration for VF and so we hold the animal in high regard.
Update: turns out the sculpture was a bit too large for the entrance area. Only a huge leg was visible. The dimensions will be adjusted to fit the location in the near future.
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