Online exhibition poses questions of identity

Ever wondered what the online version of you really looks like? Head to the virtual world and you can find out.

One of the key installations of the Australian National Portrait Gallery's latest exhibition – based in the online environment of the popular Second Life website – offers visitors a chance to view their own online identities.

Almost everyone has googled their own name. Now imagine every online image, Twitter update and Facebook detail all compressed into a single entity.

But be warned: you might not like what you see.

It poses the key question of the Doppelganger exhibition, namely: who are we in this digital age?

The exhibition – the second web-based display the gallery has launched – features the work of five established digital artists on the concept of identity.

"People spend so much time online these day, skyping, facebook, paying bills even, to the government we are pieces of data, we are a licence plate number," curator Gillian Raymond said.

"So we're just asking people to think about what does it mean to be us in a digital age."

The gallery purpose-built an island in Second Life – a downloadable 3D global habitat where people can create avatars and interact with one another – to display the work.

One of the installations is by the thought-provoking Gazira Babeli, a Italian artist who works exclusively in Second Life and whose real identity has never been revealed.

Her artwork in Doppelganger allows users to enter a digital temple where sculptures are transformed by the avatars used to view them.

The exhibition was intended to challenge the connections we have to self-made identities, as opposed to the online identity that is out of our control, digital artist Adam Nash said.

"When you become part of the digital network space, I think it's very difficult to maintain this idea that there is a single identity that defines you," he said.

He and fellow artists Christopher Dodds and Justin Clements are behind Autoscopia, an online mirror that creates your virtual being.

Each person who types in their name will find something different – "a massive, sort of growing cloud of shards and abstract shapes" that also emits sounds.

Check out the exhibition at www.portrait.gov.au until March 23.