real/virtual existence

On this month's (May 2002) cover of the magazine ARTFORUM (www.artforum.com) is a picture of the Altar of Zeus from Pergamon as it is presently in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Not only is this architecture that has moved, but the (now over a century old) installation is a true example of the composite of the real and the virtual. A whole new virtual Temple has been reconstructed utilizing fragment remains of the original--a part real, part virtual building in a sense, or is it now a part Greek, part German building? For sure it is a mostly virtual building within a real building. It is also a part real, part reenactment building within a real building.

www.quondam.com began as a further extension of the above real/virtual lines, yet also took it to the real/virtual to an extreme in that the virtual buildings in Quondam's collection are all virtual and kept within a completely other virtual building, ie, www.quondam.com itself.

One advantage that fully virtual buildings have over real buildings is that virtual buildings can move around this planet with relative ease via the Internet. Moreover, virtual buildings digitally made 'physically' come to you rather than you 'physically' going to them.

S