The work is a performance in Second Lifeone and one of Belén Gache's videopoems from the “Readings” series. In "Our dreams are a second life", the verses of the eccentric French poet Gérard de Nerval are read by Belén Gache herself, but they appear to be read by a fictional character, a virtual avatar of the author, who wanders around an equally virtual city, reading in real time.
The author's avatar wanders adrift reciting absorbed by the places that she finds. Gerard de Nerval's text begins with the phrase: "Dreams are a Second Life" and invite us to think in a second virtual life, a space where everything is possible. This work transfers poetry to the world of Second Life, a virtual community launched in 2003 that allows people to interact with other users in a multiplayer online wirtual word. The work suggests the self-portrait on the internet and the construction of virtual roles and identities as alternatives to personify actions and measure their impacts in virtual channels.
Reading, a normally intimate and silent activity, becomes the protagonist of the performance, and takes place, time and space, becoming visible to the other avatars that the protagonist encounters along the way. Thus, the author's avatar recites verses in different places like the streets of a virtualized Paris, to a nightclub full of people or floating in the milky way. The work proposes a reflection about the self-portrait on the internet and the construction of virtual roles and identities as alternatives to personify actions and measure their impacts in virtual channels.