THE SECOND COMMUNITY
IDENTITY TOURISM. CALIFORNIA CITY
In the desert northeast of Los Angeles in an abandoned city called California City the 739600m2 Second Community floats above the desert floor like a mountain avatar. In its crater the 1500 heliostatic mirrors reflect the light onto the artificial sky covering the desert of the trans-identity port. With a capacity of 40,000 people the port gathers in its featureless white space individuals open to role-play.
The Second Community explores an alternative identity tourism that goes beyond the virtual space of online role-playing games, the open desert of the Burning Man festival and the convention halls of Cosplayers. Spanning half a kilometer the artificial desert of the port isolates the person in a void of imagination where the persona of an individual becomes a fugitive and creative semiotic gadget which collectively generate a public space of radical self exploration an experimentation.
The porous mountain avatar surrounding and supporting the sky of the port collects its energy from the concentrated solar power plant in the center of the crater, harvesting the power of the sun and delivers it to the caves around the centered port where the identity tourists prepare for the events in the port.
Totally! And I was like, this thing is full on ugly. Like a bridge on acid with all that metal and stuff. And oh my God, its freaking huge and it was so strange, cuz there were like no walls or doors and everything was like totally white. There were like thousands of people totally doing weird cool stuff. You should totally come, its freakin gnarly!