This is the second scren shot of an online vigil against war that took place at several virtual communities.

In these online communities, people at home chose a character (avatar) and wonder through virtual landscapes interacting with other avatars.

The following performance stills were taken from a series of "vigils" performed in the

public chat space/application "The Palace" specifically in "Mt. Olympus" and "FireBirdz Forest".

We performed it three times on 9/15/01 and then a few more times after that.

Some of the women are in New York, and some in New Zealand & Italy.

We walked a silent vigil across rooms with people in them.

At various times, these women were up there:

karla ptacek, vicki smith & paolo grippa, helen varley Jamieson,

adriene Jenik, Ann Snitow, Connie Samaras, Lisa Brenneis

Responses varied (& still vary as we meet on a regular basis & this

is one of our current activities). On the nights that you see the

pics from- responses included chatters calling us "black turds with

foliage", joining us in our silent vigil across the screen

(following our avatars), making pro-war comments, expressing fear at

our image, being silent (not sure if this was ignoring us or

respecting the "vigil" space we were bringing in), laughing at us -

"lol" or "lmao" - (this happened when people from israel or eastern

europe recognized the group from "real life" feminist anti-war

protest actions), and of course we shared the screen with avatars

named "bye-bye afghanistan" and "bedtime for democracy" - the chat

space is definitely a reflection of culture at large.



I was in NYC during the month of September doing an artist residency. Obviously it took a fateful turn on 9/11 -- I

switched gears & started to work with others to produce alternative media (doing camera for Demoncracy Now in

exile - Amy goodman's news show that was moved to broadcast from DCTV & is now a TV show as well) & also

did a series of performances as "Women in Black" in the public visual chatrooms that I (and the DT troupe)

perform Desktop Theater in - we went in every day at a

certain time & performed silent vigils walking across the spaces (slowly) where people were. It was fascinating to see the response.