Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG
www.0100101110101101.org/index.html

Reenactments of Marina Abramović's and Ulay's Imponderabilia (1977), Chris Burden’s Shoot (1971), and Gilbert and George’s The Singing Sculpture (1968)
Synthetic Performances in Second Life, 2007
Photographs: Postmasters Gallery, New York

Eva and Franco Mattes have produced a series of Synthetic Performances, reenactments of
historical performances inside the virtual world Second Life. All the pieces are performed by the artists' avatars and people were able to attend and interact with the live performances inside Second Life.
In all of the three original performances, the role of the artists’ bodies is pushed to extremes of physicality and therefore becomes paradoxical in the cyberspace performances where embodiment is virtual and controlled through the programming of code. The avatars that enact the performances in Second Life do not resemble the artists. Instead, they are modelled after the Mattes' in an ironic play with identity. The resemblances between the avatars and Eva and Franco Mattes' physical features do not reveal much about the artists' changeable and cryptic identities. Eva and Franco are, in fact, one of the many pseudonymous used by the duo.