As the opening of the ISEA Belfast clinic approaches at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, Ireland, we have on hand a new version of VF. This one is quicker to take effect  but not as long lasting. Its only problem is a few new visual side effects. But these can be brought under control a bit later. Above is a rare picture of the test subject JC Priestman under the influence of the new dose of VF. It actually shows him as he sees himself in the moment. Not as we would see him.

Doses will be available at this weblog at: Clinical Trial Instructions

Doctors hours:
Golden Thread Gallery portal,  Second Life doctors hours will be August 7 – Sept 6th:

Tues, Weds, Friday:
 4:00 – 5:00 pm UTC/GMT Belfast time
11:00 – 12:00 am EST
 9:00-10: Linden Time 

Saturdays:
3:00 – 4:00 pm UTC/GMT
9:00 – 10:00 am EST
8:00-9:00 am Linden Time 

ISEA Conference, Waterfront Hall, August 26 -29:
Daily- TBA

Judging from a rather extensive  reaction in Europe to the launch of the Virta-Flaneurazine in September of 2009, it seems to be the case that in the United States, few people wander without purpose or objectives, with the possible exception of George W. Bush. Now that the election is behind us, we might see if the Obama Administration creates different atmosphere. Will people consider other modes of living other than the straight line to cash or overworked economic productivity? Of course Europe has a long-standing tradition of considering a wider view of living and enjoying life. Paris is of the quintessential site of wanderment and the 19th-century flâneur: 

Liberation, Paris,  ”Cosmique trip sur Second Life.” Marie Lechner

Download article: PDF translation: PDF

There was also an astounding number of  posts in the Spanish speaking world. Perhaps it was led by the following article or possibly something  embedded in Spanish linguistics; distraído, errante, itinerante, correteo, viaje, distracción, divagación, estraviado, delirante.

El Pais, “Dos estadounidenses crean una ‘droga’ digital para Second Life,” R. Bosco and S. Caldana

Download article: PDF translation: PDF

We might also well consider the reference to doctor Mabuse here, that is, the character of fiction who hypnotizes his patients to carry out  his various schemes.  The question might be whether the Internet has begun to hypnotize its audience into various social network business schemes and a free labor source of seeming do-it-yourselfers. Clearly the reference cannot be applied to VF or its research team, since the drug has no scheme or purposes it sets its users to fulfill. The medical use of hypnosis, nowadays, has been shown to assist in the improvement of various mental disorders. That’s the purpose of VF, to set its users free. Sleepwalking, the method of mobility in the wonderful film classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is a great model for our desired effects.

On October 11, 2008 Dr* W Pappenheimer and Dr* JC Freeman,  speaking for our four member team on the in and out-world, presented our preliminary procedures and findings in the VF clinical studies so far at the New Museum in New York. We were happy to be present at the request of our original venture  Investment sponsors, Rhizome.org,  though it was not easy to gauge the reception of an “art” audience.

Movie Documentation: VF at Rhizome Commissions panel, New Museum

The *doctors have begun to prepare for the upcoming clinical trials in Belfast this August. ISEA, the International Symposium on Electronic Art will be the overall setting. For the month-long show “ISEA2009: The Exhibition,”  curated by Kathy Rae Huffman at the Golden Thread Gallery we will have an ongoing portal with clinic hours to be posted. A medium-sized mobile walk in clinic will be set up  during the conference days August 26th through 29th.

Test subject JC Priestman has been showing increased signs of transgenic mutations, including protruding facial features, large rounded ears and his tail elongation has increased. We are hoping our gene splice will eventually produce a good transgenic rat specimen. The doctors will continue to monitor and document the situation.

 Squint eyes to see young men play a war games at a rehabilitation
center for Internet addicts in Beijing. China has banned the use
 of electroshock therapy in treating Web addicts. (Source: China Daily)

The question of whether VF is addictive or real, or whether it is indistinguishable from pre-existing problems of “internet addiction” was put to us in an interview from a W Radio affiliate in Bogata, Columbia. How “internet addiction” is defined is mushy question, whether there are a certain number of hours a week that qualify a user as addicted or whether it is more an attitude or state of mind induced during internet activities. However, since there is an increasing level of inter-dependance between the virtual space and reality itself, “dependance” may be a difficult  principle to assess. We were, however, mindful of the challenges concerning the interview broadcast from the location of Bogota, Columbia, which has seen so many serious problems tied to the drug trade and the world demand for psycho-active drugs. There is the continued human desire for altered consciousness which drives demand. VF as we have repeatedly pointed out is not illegal in the US because it is not defined by the FDA. (Don’t believe anyone who claims otherwise.)

Estimates from VF clinical study indicate that most trial participants feel that everything on the internet is “real”.

W Radio- link to interview: http://www.wradio.com.co/oir.aspx?id=692896 
archive: http://www.willpap-projects.com/VF/RadioW_Interview.aif

W Radio is currently considered one of the most important radio stations on the spanish speaking world, with an estimated audience of over 2′000.000 people broadcasting to Ecuador, Panama, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Colombia and more.

JC Priestman, who has been with the VF clinical trials from the start, is beginning to show troubling signs of VF addiction. He has been seen hanging out around the clinic after hours and the inventory in the pharmacy seems to be out of order. Although he is understandably tired after his contribution, his demeanor seems to have changed and he spends may hours facing into corners of rooms with a glazed, detached expression.

JC Priestman Showing Signs of VF Addiction

The effectiveness of the use of VF in the treatment of internet addiction is still unclear, but we fear that VF might cause its own dependancy issues.

As we have worked to open up the grid structure of Second Life in its replication of real world  land ownership and commercial urban planning, it occurred to us that there are other network grids that might be appropriate  for a VF wanderment type drug. The rise and conversion of the “open source” social networking grids, where leisure activities are converted into commerce, such as Facebook, Myspace and YouTube, will be in need of diversionary activities to stave off increasing reports of dependancy and addiction. A programmable drug might allow users to wander erratically through Facebook walls, music groups or video remixes and eperience a welcome release from typical daily habits. Integrated into office worker software, an adapted VF drug might allow users to automatically wander through word processing, spreadsheet and database management documents, data structures, or interoffice communications. It would not be a stretch of the imagination therefore to envision a meta-VF which accessed  everything on and linked to a user’s computer.

user document wanderment pathpossible resulting document hallucination

Part of our ability to supervise clinical trials remotely involved opening as many telecommunications  programs and windows as possible to connect to the space. The idea was that should we lose the patient physically, psychologically or virtually we could find them in one window or another. This proved to be a lifesaver in a number of instances. At other critical junctures, this multilateral telepresence also allowed Dr.* Freeman and I to enter the consciousness of a clinical participant subtly through text or visually-audibly through AV Chat. With all the windows open simultaneously, and various kinds of activity and communications happening in many forms, it was somewhat exhilarating feeling of connectivity. There seems little question that we might be entering an era of medi-valence in the best sense of this concept. However, to call this control, is somewhat of a misnomer, since our highest goal in developing VF  is to cause or allow the patient to the unbridled freedom of wandering.

During the first few weeks of the clinic at Fringe Exhibitions we had some continuing problems with what we called the pejorative “bad trip.” However, it was not this avenue which bothered us, but rather its frequency. Negative, dead-end or paranoiac experiences have been reported with the use of all psychoactive drugs including those prescribed for depression such as Prozac or Zoloft. In the initial trials we experienced both in clinic visitors and our self-study experiments, problems in which the user would become a immobile and un-teleportable or exceedingly dissociated from the live Internet connection to the online virtual world. The above screen shots are of one of my such experiences.  I also observed a similar instance where the user’s avatar plummeted downwards in an endless freefall, spiral hallucination in tow. The patient and I watched until the avatar disappeared below. I’ve never seen this before, nor since.

The other significant problem that developed was a condition of immobility whereby the avatar simply would not teleport, and hence wandered endlessly along the bottom of the ocean or the sides of the hills near the clinic. This was indeed frustrating for administrator and subject alike. Since this problem seemed to clear up with adjustments in the dosage, calls to ATT tech support and refreshed local network connections, we did not spend much time studying the source of this effect. It may well be a proclivity in user with respect to certain dosages or conditions of the local or public network. However, at one point we did notice a distinct correspondence to periods of high Internet traffic and local Los Angeles traffic.