Paradise of the Assassins - live the legends in virtual world Performance :: November 2, 2008; 7:00 pm CET; 10:00 am PST :: Land of Illusion, Second Life (contact Lily Jun in-world for visits) :: Installation at MAD emergent art center, Eindhoven, Netherlands.

The performance is taking place in Land of Illusion (in Second Life) created by Chinese artists team Lily & Honglei, and conducted by a group of performers with different cultural background. In the gallery, projection and computer workstation will allow viewers to interact with virtual encounters while immersing in a fantasy landscape and storytelling. By visiting a dream-like virtual Chinese garden and engaging legendary, historical scenes, audiences will obtain a cross-cultural experience - online or in a physical gallery space.

Paradise of Assassins is designed particularly for the new media exhibition held at ImageRadio festival. Its platform, Land of Illusion, developed since the year 2006, aims to launch more new media projects which interpret traditional eastern themes, specifically folk culture and arts, in forms of video, animation and virtual installation. With this net-art project, we intend to challenge the existing artistic approaches, explore new ways of communications in an increasingly globalized world.

More importantly, with our net-art project, we are proving that the overseas realtime collaboration is no longer a difficult task for artists, and the author/reader interactivity can achieve a new level through online channels. In another word, the definition of “public space” keeps altering and expanding in the Internet era, which demands us to rethink the relations of “truth” and “fiction,” “virtual” and “real,” or “human” and “environment.”

Visitors at the Science Center will be physically connected to inhabitants of the virtual world Second Life through an intervirtual balancing plateau. The total weight of avatars standing on the virtual side of the plateau will be calculated and processed along with the weight of all people standing on the physical side of the plateau. The outcome will trigger the synchronised real-time movement of both the hydraulic powered and script controlled sides of the plateau, leading to an experience of indirect physical contact between real and a virtual beings. A two way videoprojection will visually connect the virtual and real-life participants standing on the installation