Scott Kildall & Victoria Scott
No Matter
Independent Artists
Website
Summary
No Matter plays with the distinction between the real and imaginary by ’smuggling’ digital objects into the real world. A compelling display of ‘imaginary’ objects created in Secondlife and recreated in real life allows us to toy with concepts of myth, imagination, ideals and virtual economy.
Abstract
No Matter (2008), is an installation of ‘imaginary objects’ made both in Second Life and physical space.
No Matter explores the tension between the virtual and real economies by (1) commissioning 25 builders and artists to produce 40 cultural artifacts in Second Life space; (2) paying them in Linden dollars at an equivalent scale of $1.50 to $12.00 per object; (3) extracting the objects from Second Life — a closed system where 3D models cannot be exported; (4) reconstructing these objects as 3D paper replicas with high-quality printed textures in physical space.
This project concerns the trafficking of ‘imaginary objects’ in simulated and physical spaces. Imaginary objects commonly appear in myth, literature, in thought experiments, popular culture and as placeholder objects in language. Items such as the Holy Grail, Time Machine or Schrödinger’s Cat, do not exist in the material realm, except as replicas, and embody the tension between the ideal and real.
We have ‘smuggled’ these objects as digital plunder, amassing them into a real life trophy room of ontological treasures.
For No Matter these objects are displayed simultaneously in three main spaces:
First, in Second Life, where they form an interactive installation — avatars can climb inside the Trojan Horse, open Pandora’s Box and teleport through a Portable Hole.
In real life, we display paper models of these objects on simulated wood plinths as a traditional gallery installation. Each physical object in this collection retains its original SL primitive 3D polygon form and captures the inherent humor in this economy of the imaginary.
A third component, a website database, ties these two worlds together as a catalogue of economic relations and study of value. Builder profiles and object descriptions are listed with a cost/time analysis for constructing each object in Second Life highlighting the wage disparities for each builder’s labor.
Biography
Scott Kildall (USA) and Victoria Scott (Canada) started their collaboration as a strategy to stay together after meeting in the graduate program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 2006, they attended The Future of Idea Art, a conceptual art residency, at the Banff Centre for the Arts. There they produced The 2×2 Project, a series of experiments to physically materialize the psychological space of online social networks as installation, prints and objects.
In 2007, they were awarded the Turbulence.org sponsored Mixed Realities Networked Art Commission, for a new project, No Matter. Both the physical and simulated installations of No Matter premiered simultaneously on February 7th, 2008 in both Second Life and Emerson College, Boston.
In their most recent relational installation, Ghost in The Machine, a hired philosopher assists the public in drawing or writing a response to the question “What is the Ghost in the Machine?”