RMB City

RMB City is a virtual city in the online world of Second Life, planned and developed by Beijing artist Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy). Launched in 2008, and open to the public since January 2009, RMB City is a platform for experimental creative activities, one in which Cao Fei and her collaborators use different mediums to test the boundaries between virtual and physical existence. As a laboratory for investigations in art, design, architecture, literature, cinema, politics, economy, society, and beyond, RMB City is constantly nourished by new and innovative projects, and supported by leading international art institutions and networks. As a model of avant-garde urban planning, it traverses the boundaries between past and future, real and virtual to link China and the cosmopolitan contemporary world.

In 2009, RMB City was a lab for both filmmaking and live theater. Cao Fei’s first documentary film after building RMB City, The Birth of RMB City, took a dreamy and epic look at the city, showing how it was constructed, but also highlighting it’s fragility by depicting an inevitable demise. After this film was completed, she invited different artists to use various mediums to create different live artworks, and those works also became the life of the on-line city. Based on those creative actions, Cao Fei made two films in the video format: People's Limbo and Live in RMB City, both of which became chronicles of human experience in RMB City.

Cao Fei does not only investigate in virtual space however, and in 2009, she traversed boundaries to bring RMB City to the real life space by creating RMB City Opera. This stage performance brought the interaction and tension between real and virtual identities to light in front of an audience, by using both physical and Second Life spaces to set the stage for interaction between actors and avatars.

The running of RMB City is extensively documented on its official website.