I began reading this book while I was lost. For the last several hours, I had been riding a rental bike around Berlin with its flat terrain, mixed-up architectural styles and streets whose names perpetually change as they twist along imaginary rivers. At a coffee break in a Turkish cafe in Kreuzberg, I read her introduction which described my day: a deliberate act of surrender where time ceases to matter. I had entered a geographic state of uncertainty — of being lost — where the mind can be fully present. Her field guide came in handy.
Embracing the geographically unfamiliar is an old concept, rooted in histories of adventurers and the imagination of childhood, but our society is drifting towards fixedness. Maps, knowledge and time are increasingly objectively quantified, such that Solnit’s field guide becomes well-needed.
After her powerful introduction follows a series of short plotless narratives— its hard to categorize these texts, which combine her personal history with larger cultural patterns.  She writes of the color blue and speaks of the infinite horizon, the science of molecules and of Yves Klein’s leaping into the void. She meanders about ruins, Blade Runner, punk rock and urban renewal. She discusses Borges’ labyrinths, the Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca and the film, Vertigo. These strands of thought all revolve around themes of getting lost and we fall into the words, not knowing what comes next.
While her personal narratives are less interesting than her ability to wind together historical threads, nevertheless, her own stories are the ones that activate the imagination. This book is a departure point. Like getting lost, it opens up possibilities rather than resolving them. I’d recommend reading it while you are traveling alone, and then you can apply the principles insid
“A Field Guide to Getting Lost”
by Rebecca Solnit
I began reading this book while I was lost. For the last several hours, I had been riding a rental bike around Berlin with its flat terrain, mixed-up architectural styles and streets whose names perpetually change as they twist along imaginary rivers. At a coffee break in a Turkish cafe in Kreuzberg, I read her introduction which described my day: a deliberate act of surrender where time ceases to matter. I had entered a geographic state of uncertainty — of being lost — where the mind can be fully present. Her field guide came in handy.
Embracing the geographically unfamiliar is an old concept, rooted in histories of adventurers and the imagination of childhood, but our society is drifting towards fixedness. Maps, knowledge and time are increasingly objectively quantified, such that Solnit’s field guide becomes well-needed.
After her powerful introduction follows a series of short plotless narratives— its hard to categorize these texts, which combine her personal history with larger cultural patterns.  She writes of the color blue and speaks of the infinite horizon, the science of molecules and of Yves Klein’s leaping into the void. She meanders about ruins, Blade Runner, punk rock and urban renewal. She discusses Borges’ labyrinths, the Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca and the film, Vertigo. These strands of thought all revolve around themes of getting lost and we fall into the words, not knowing what comes next.
While her personal narratives are less interesting than her ability to wind together historical threads, nevertheless, her own stories are the ones that activate the imagination. This book is a departure point. Like getting lost, it opens up possibilities rather than resolving them. I’d recommend reading it while you are traveling alone, and then you can apply the principles inside.
Made Real at Furtherfield in London
/by Scott KildallI’m excited to be in Made Real — a two-person show with Nathaniel Stern in London at Furtherfield Gallery
I will be featuring my 2010 Turbulence-commissioned Playing Duchamp along with Wikipedia Art (in collaboration with Nathaniel Stern). Also, I want to acknowledge the other Wikipedia Art collaborators: Patrick Lichty, Jon Coffelt and Brian Sherwin, who made Wikipedia Art such a success.
The show details are here — the opening is on May 26th.
Volunteer for the 2049 Hotline
/by Scott KildallAre you interested in being an emissary from the future?
For my upcoming “2049” show at the Dump in San Francisco, one of the artworks that will be featured will be a phone booth where you can talk to someone from the year 2049. People can pick up the phone (it will be set up as a live line) and talk to an ambassador-from-the-future, who will answer questions about what life is like in the year 2049.
What is 2049 like? It is up to YOU to answer this. You can change it for each caller.
I’m gathering a volunteers and if this is something you might be interested in, please email me at: lucky (at) kildall.com — its a 45-minute commitment — and will be a fun performance where you can pretty much do what you want.
The show is from
5-9pm, Friday May 20th and 1-5pm, Saturday, May 21st (Pacific Standard Time), you don’t have to be local to San Francisco to play.
Background
I am playing the role of a prospector from the future who mines the garbage heaps of a past civilization to build technologies to survive. Trawling through construction debris, discarded electronics and the scraps of people’s lives, I have etched blueprints and made imaginary devices such as an infinite battery and scent-based resource detector (a.k.a. “The Sniffer”).
Prospecting from the Future
/by Scott KildallLast week, I began a 4-month residency at Recology San Francisco (a.k.a. The Dump) where I make art solely from the refuse that people drop off in their cars and trucks. I am treating this residency as a performance.
I am playing the role of a prospector from the future who mines the garbage heaps of a past civilization to build technologies to survive. Trawling through construction debris, discarded electronics and the scraps of people’s lives, I am making blueprints and building imaginary devices such as a food synthesizer and an infinite battery.
I derived inspiration by props from films such as E.T. and The Science of Sleep. These contraptions obviously don’t work, yet they activate a child-like imagination, where we can build whatever we want from materials at hand. In this consumer culture where the desire for designed objects runs rampant, this project serves as critique and antidote.
From the standpoint of new media artwork, I have been grappling with how to work with technology in artworks — I use technology precisely because our economy and values are so steeply driven by it. I have long ago moved away from interactive artwork for a number of reasons.
I want to celebrate the imaginary. This project lets me play the role of artist-as-mystic instead of as-technologist. I am free to create narratives in which I simultaneously critique our ecological disaster course but also to suggest possible futures. And, more than anything, have fun. Without this, we have zero hope, which is something we need at this time.
Book Review: Garbage Land
/by Scott KildallIn preparation for my upcoming residency at Recology San Francisco (a.k.a. The Dump), I have been consuming books and films about garbage management. Elizabeth Royte’s Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash is a perfect entry point for those that want to venture beyond compost culture and delve into the real story behind where human waste goes after exiting the home.
The background narrative, which softens the tone into personal exploration rather than polemic, is that Royte wants to find out what happens to her household waste. She meets workers and managers at landfills, recycling centers, and biosolids facilities. We learn about the garbage routes in New York City, massive car shredders and the politics of poop.
The chapter on eWaste — electronic waste such as computers and cell phones — most impacted me, as I live in the heart of laptopia in San Francisco. We already know the sad story of the export of obsolete devices to China and India, where impoverished residents strip out the copper bits by hand, exposing themselves to carcinogens and other toxins. What has stuck with me is the distance we have between our devices, akin to how food is produced and what arrives on our plate.
The manufacturing industry perpetuates this gap between consumption and destruction. While new laptops, iPhones and iPads satisfy our design sense and device fetish, lobbyists closes down “gray markets” to make refurbishing such devices illegal. eWaste doesn’t get mentioned by Apple, Dell or Verizon. The environmental impact of these devices are not built into the capitalist model.
Royte quietly tunes us into the argument that recycling can be viewed as a panacea. Because many recycle their household waste (which only accounts for 15% of everything that goes to landfill), they feel like they are doing something, but the most effective change can be seen in laws regulating industry. From a personal consumption standpoint, instead of buying green products, less shopping is a far more effective tactic. Yet, the buy-less message has been relegated to the political sidelines such as Buy Nothing Day. Instead buying something labelled green makes us feel good because shopping makes us feel good.
Royte teeters between a sometimes self-indulgent personal narrative, fascinating investigative reporting and pointing out the different sides of the political debate while also providing a history of how we have treated garbage. She also tells of how the bottling industry funded the infamous 1970s anti-pollution where the American Indian sheds a tear while looking at piles of litter. The purpose was to trick consumers into shouldering the burden of recycling rather than entertain legislation for refillable bottles, which would be far more efficient than melting them down.
In a decade where we have become our own garbageman, this well-written book is still relevant 5 years after being published, which is a long shelf-life for a non-fiction book. Read it.
Elizabeth Royte continues her musings on waste and other topics on her very active blog.
3D Duchamp Chess Pieces
/by Scott KildallFor the Playing Duchamp project, I made custom 3D chess pieces to resemble Duchamp’s hard-carved originals.
The 3D-rendered versions (designed by Daisuke Imai):
In the Playing Duchamp project, I have reprogrammed a chess computer to play like Marcel Duchamp, which anyone can play online.
And the only documentation of the original set:
At this point, I’m considering sending them to the 3D printer to make them real.
By the way, if you are looking for custom 3D work, I’d highly recommend working with Daisuke.
Play Chess Against Duchamp
/by Scott KildallI have just completed a new Turbulence Commission for a project called “Playing Duchamp,” where based on records of his chess games, I have programmed a chess computer to play like Marcel Duchamp. You can play Marcel Duchamp here.
During my childhood, I was a chess whiz and spent many hours playing against a primitive chess computer my father bought me. I reveled in the infinite possibilities on such a small board. When playing firends, I learned about imagination and deception: how to set traps, feign weaknesses and when to attack. After university, I became a computer programmer and in later years, I transitioned into the contemporary artworld as a new media artist. Fascinated by paradigm shifts such as those created by Duchamp, I wanted honor his legacy as a both an artist and chess player — the two are inseparable. Combining my early love of chess with my algorithmic skills and a current passion for creating conceptual media artwork, this piece serves this purpose.
Thanks to both New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (Turbulence.org) and  <terminal> at Austin Peay State University for funding and support.
Beta-testing Duchamp
/by Scott KildallI’m looking for some beta-testers for “Playing Duchamp” — a new net art project.
Working with 72 recorded games of Marcel Duchamp’s chess matches, I have created a computer program to play chess as if it were Duchamp. In a series of open challenges, I invite all artists, both skilled and unskilled at this classic game, to play against a Duchampian ghost.
You don’t need to know how to play chess well to try this out.
The official release for the project will be on November 30th. Stay tuned.
If interested, please email me at: lucky (at) kildall (dot) com
After Thought at Art in Odd Places
/by Scott KildallLast Thursday, I exhibited After Thought, a performance-installation that I developed while at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center at Art in Odd Places in New York (check out their AIOP website, there’s some great projects there).
As the name implies, these performances that happen in unusual spots in the city, this one being at the 14th Street Y.
We scheduled this to happen during the CSA pick up where folks were picking up their weekly organic veggies.
Here I am posing with my two assistants: Minha Lee and Zack Frater. We used the lab coat + eyeglasses props to reel people in.
I began with a short intake form with questions such as “What is your greatest physical fear?” I discovered that an inordinate number of people are afraid of snakes.
After completing the intake form, people wear a brainwave-reading headset — I use the Neurosky Mindset — to capture stress and relaxation levels. They turn over flashcards while I monitor their reactions.
I can’t see what they are looking at. If their their stress or relaxation responses spike, I ask them for the card, then note it down on my result form. This person was especially negatively triggered by cockroaches.
And this gentleman was relaxed by the guys hanging out in the hot tub. Give me that flashcard!
Minha, who interned for me at Eyebeam also administered tests. This subject has no reaction, good or bad to the image of the police car.
Here you can see how the intervention occurs. People had no idea why we were there. Many were suspicious, thinking that we our Scientology-style relaxation/stress test was trying to sell them something or lure them into a cult. Others were immediately intrigued. Some needed convincing. One respondent offered us a bundle of swiss chard for barter.
Afterward, I would sit down with each respondent and we would talk about their results. “Why did you get stressed out by the cute puppy?”
In the background here, you can see one of the two curators, Yaelle Amir, who demonstrates her ambidexterity by texting while typing.
One of my last tests of the day was with Stephanie Rothenberg, a good friend of mine. I knew her too well to provide unbiased analysis. The image of the crying baby was one of her stress indicators. Hmmm.
Day 17: Into the Streets, Into the Museum
/by Scott KildallThis was the big presentation day for Gift Horse.
We assembled our volunteer crew in the morning and they donned togas for the Green Prix parade.
We already knew that the horse would clear the doorway, but others were concerned. Reality replicated itself and we got outside South Hall just fine.
We look like we are exerting ourselves a lot here, but it was easy to push with all of our crew.
And thanks to Danny Lulu for his excellent photography!
Some of the students from a local high school came out to help.
After 2 hours or so, we made it the San Jose Museum of Art. Clap! Clap!
In the next 3 hours, we quickly disassembled and reassembled the horse in the gallery space for the Retro-Tech exhibition.
At 4pm, we did a quick ceremony, where we presented the horse to Russ, one of the trustees of the museum.
He accepted the gift, but whoa! Look at all the viruses spilling out!
Now they’re on the floor as part of the “artwork” that makes up the horse.
And a final shot of the horse, in its fully glory.
01SJ Day 12: Gift Horse Done!
/by Scott KildallWe are so tired and we are done. The Gift Horse was difficult, as expected — so many details. And now the 01SJ Biennial truly will begin. We’re excited and hope you can make it for the Green Prix parade and presentation at the San Jose Museum of Art on Saturday.
Because of the late-night fatigue, I’ll keep it to a series of pictures with minimal commentary.
Victoria and I were moving at double-speed past midnight.
A lot of detail work such as filling in the lines between the panels.
All 12 viruses:
Kris and Noah and Clementine Lang from Electric Works stopped by in the evening.
And here is the corral where the horse will live at South Hall for the next two days.
Viruses all finished, loaded up and ready to go.
SJ01 Day 11: Almost Done
/by Scott KildallToday is the second-to-last day we are in the garage. We’re getting pretty tired with the late nights and full workdays, but everyone has responded enthusiastically to the Gift Horse.
We still have more viruses to go, but a late night beer-and-virus session resulted in near completion. Here, Beth (from growBot Garden) and Jenny (from OpenSolarCircuits) are making a few.
They were later joined by more of the garage artists wishing for a late-night break.
We have finally fit all the panels and you can see the legs all on and the belly exposed, with viruses inside. Yay!
And a bellyful of the viruses!
Day 12 is the last garage day and we’ll be wrapping it up tomorrow. Lots of cleanup and detail work left to do.
01SJ Day 10: Horse Nearly Panelled
/by Scott KildallMore viruses for the Gift Horse. Thanks to the docents of the San Jose Museum of Art and also the ZERO1 volunteers, we finished off 100 viruses today.
Meanwhile, we began final fittings of exterior panels for the horse, after picking up the last reprints from the ever-patient folks at Electric Works, art gallery and press in San Franciscio. Due to inevitable minute differences between the virtual and the real, we had to cut some to fit, especially all of the leg panels. Sharpie marks on the back are the standard way to indicate what goes where.
11:30pm and Victoria is at it again with the jigsaw. You can see the nearly-finished Trojan Horse in the background.
Crap! I mismeasured one of the leg panels and cut off more then I should. My heart sank.
…but I was saved by an off-cut leg panel, which fitted magically where this one was to be placed. It was clearly time to have a beer and go to sleep.
01SJ Day 9: Virus-making Sunday
/by Scott KildallI can’t believe we’ve been here 9 days now. The Garage has become our second home and the largest studio I’ve ever worked in.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted had a table full of eager virus-makers.
More kids were here than yesterday and these two youngsters really enjoyed T-Virus from Resident Evil — this one turns you into a zombie. Fortunately, its just made from paper.
Later in the day, a group of girls all made Andromeda Strain, from the movie well before their time.
Many of the volunteers stuck around and made several viruses, helping fill the belly and for this, we were most appreciative.
We also got the head panels attached!
01SJ Day 8: Workshopping the Viruses
/by Scott KildallToday was a busy day with Gift Horse where we spent much of the day talking and working with the public and at the end of it, I was both happy and exhausted.
Out first helpers were Maria and Cecilia, two art students from San Jose State. They stayed and each built four viruses and even conquered the most difficult one to construct: Koobface.
Here Joanna and Jennifer are demonstrating the proper technique for placing their viruses in the belly of the horse.
My non-scientific observation was that Cooties was the most popular choice of virus.
And Rabies, which this gentleman  is gluing together, was oft-selected.
Throughout the day, we got a steady stream of visitors to the virus-construction table.
After 5 hours of leading workshops (meanwhile, Victoria was cutting, fitting and adjusting the panels), we ran out of viruses. I rushed to my date with the laser-cutter and sliced and scored out 75 more in anticipation of tomorrow’s day. The lasercutter is the best thing ever.
Here is a sheet of Andromeda Strain, which is the easiest one and is essentially like a 4-sided Dungeons and Dragons die (three, glued together)
Meanwhile, all day we could hear the pounding of hammer against nails as our neighbors, MTAA, constructed their Art Barn.
No complaints though, this is the Garage experience that we has planned for and we found ourselves taking short breaks and joking around with the other artists throughout the day.
By 7pm, the horse had about 100 viruses in it. Its getting there, but still lots more virus-building to do!
01SJ Day 7: Download the Viruses
/by Scott KildallWe started the today’s Gift Horse day by picking up the castle wall sections — printed onto the same bioboard as the horse panels — from our good friends at Electric Works. Here you see Victoria showing off her street-jigsawing skills as she slices through the panels on the corner of Mission and 8th St.
An hour drive to San Jose and then we began our day by opening shop to virus-construction.
Since we have deployed the laser-cutter to excise the outlines and scored the viruses on the card stock, all one has to do is use glue. For those of you unable to go to South Hall over the next week, you can download the viruses from our website. Here’s what the uncut virus sheets look like (this is ILOVEYOU)
Annette Mees and Ken Eklund, who are working on the ZERO1-supported ZOROP artwork pitched in to make Dengue Fever and Cooties.
By the end of the day, we had 30 viruses in the belly of the horse. I expect by the end of the weekend, to have many, many more.
Also, a little more progress on the panels, though we got sidetracked by all the conversations and nice people we met.
01SJ Day 6: Panels and Special Guests
/by Scott KildallHello Gift Horse fans! The days at the Garage are pleasantly blurring together. Artists everywhere are building their projects and we are stage center in the construction zone.
Today was a divide-and-conquer kind of day. While Victoria was fitting the chest panels (don’t they look good), I was busy with the lasercutter and figuring out how to put score lines into the small virus sculptures. After two hours, I had handfuls of the next round of viruses, including Koobface, Dengue Fever, The Andromeda Strain and ILOVEYOU for workshops this weekend.
Here, we see a glimpse of what the Trojan Horse will look like when fully-paneled. Now that the dust has literally settled, we are beginning to clad the horse.
We had a special guest stop by, Rudy Rucker, science fiction writer and thinker. He appropriately worked on a Snow Crash virus along with his friend, Chris.
Here is his interpretation of Snow Crash. Take that, Neal Stephenson!
Other visitors helped build paper sculptures as well. Pictured here are Diane and Sally, whom we caught in conversation fulfilling one of our goals to gather strangers together in real space.
Finally, Ken Gregory gave us a demonstration of his impressive whip-cracking skills. He will make an excellent slavemaster for the Green Prix parade, exhorting the Greek Warriors to push the horse down the streets.
01SJ Day 5: Public Viruses
/by Scott KildallToday we shifted to the virus-making portion of Gift Horse, where anyone can assemble a virus sculpture to be placed inside the belly of the Trojan Horse. The gesture is to gather people in real space, give them a way to hand-construct their “artwork” and to hide hundeds of the mini-sculptures inside the horse.
The first virus to go inside, the Rat of the Chinese zodiac, was The Andromeda Strain, an imaginary virus from the film. This father-daughter team cut, folded and glued the paper sculpture together and she did the honors of secreting it inside the armature.
It takes a long time to cut each virus from the printed sheet. This is where the lasercutter from the Tech Shop came in handy. In the afternoon, we traced the outlines of the Snow Crash virus and tried cutting it out. After about an hour of fiddling around with settings and alignment, I was able to get a batch done.
Hurray for mechanized production!
This halved the assembly time from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, bypassing the tedious cutting step. Perhaps this is a compromise in the process of hand-construction techniques, but I’ll gladly make the trade-off for practicality.
The next person to sit with us was Jeff who worked on one of the freshly-cut Snow Crash viruses.
Once finished, it joined The Andromeda Strain. Come on down to South Hall (435, S. Market, San Jose) and check us out — we will be holding workshops on building viruses all weekend.
01SJ Day 4: Out of the Garage, Into the Parking Lot
/by Scott KildallCompared to last night’s construction frenzy, today was calm and involved detail work and time on the computer to preparing the paper viruses sculptures.
The horse did venture outside of South Hall and we were both anxious about whether or not it would fit through the 14-foot high rollup doors. We had taken measurements and had planned to make it with just 2 inches of clearance. But you never know about human error.
Once again, the 3D model corresponded to reality. Phew.
Although the wooden armature is beautiful by itself, the printed wood panels that make up the exterior cladding will be stunning. But, the environment at South Hall is too dusty (our neighbors are both sawing lots of wood), so we are beginning what we can the “stagecraft” portion of the project — creating the illusion that the horse will appear like a 3D model. Here, we are painting what will be the spaces between printed panels, so that you see black in between. This will make more sense in a couple days.
01SJ Day 3: Armature Assembly
/by Scott KildallThe first part of the day was what I’ve often experienced while making projects onsite: several runs to box hardware stores looking around for the right fittings and being horribly inefficient. By mid-afternoon we hit our stride and fortunately, all the measurements we made in the Sketchup model of the Gift Horse translated perfectly to real life. Astounding.
By late afternoon we were finally assembling the wagon for the giant Trojan Horse, which will be pushed during the Green Prix parade on Saturday, September 18th by many costumed Greek Warriors. Later in the day, the horse will be “gifted” to the San Jose Art Museum, where it will join the Retro-Tech exhibition.
Here is the wagon, finished and stable. It wheeled around quite easily.
By now it,was 7pm and we were exhausted but we wanted to start assembling. We got help from last night’s dinner crew and constructed the main body of the Gift Horse.
A headlesss horse wouldn’t do. We soldiered on and affixed with the head piece followed by the nose.
Finally, a finished horse armature! Stay tuned, we’ll be putting on the panels in the next several days.
01SJ Day 2: The Cart Before The Horse
/by Scott KildallBefore we can assemble the horse, we have to build that cart that it will be wheeled around on.
The cart is rated to hold 2000 lbs, which hopefully will be over-engineered since I’m not sure of the exact weight of the horse. With 8 casters on the bottom and trying to figure out a good wagon assembly, it took us a while to get a basic form assembled (a shout out here to our friends Brett Bowman and Zarin Gollogly who helped make this possible). By the end of the day, we were close but still not finished.
Sidetracked by socializing, we got a chance to catch up with some old friends, including James Morgan (pictured below), some of the aforementioned folks from yesterday and also some new ones such as Chico MacMurtrie, ex-San Francisco resident who now lives in Brooklyn.
01SJ Day 1: Out of the Studio, Into the World
/by Scott KildallA long, long day but we managed to get all of the Gift Horse parts into a 17′ truck and into the South Hall site for the beginning of Out of the Garage, Into the World. I was amazed at how tightly-packed the truck was.
South Hall is massive and with 80,000 square feet of space, you can imagine the difficulties of planning the space out — here is Jamie Austin (assistant curator for ZERO1) marking out our space with the Architect, Angel Borrero Cubero. Chalk lines demarcate the staging area for our giant Trojan Horse.
Other people we got a chance to talk to include Ken Gregory, who was a generous donor of the Gift Horse Kickstarter campaign and DC Spensley, a pal of mine I know through Second Life. We also met two folks from Minnepolis Art on Wheels (MAW), who were telling me that their sketchy motel room came equipped with a baseball bat. Whoa! Everyone was setting up today. Lots of energy and friendliness abounded and I’ll have more on the various projects in the coming days. On the first setup day, the most visually striking thing I saw were all the wrecked cars from the Empire Drive-In project.
And behind us is the TechShop building their shared ShopBot — the very machine that we used to make Gift Horse.
Wikipedia Art Remix (performance)
/by Scott KildallAugust 19th @ Benrimon Contemporary, part of Younger Than Moses: Idle Worship
514 West 24th Street on the 2nd floor
An evening of performances & screenings by Ryan V. Brennan, the Wikipedia Art Project, Genevieve White, Adam & Ron. Beginning 6:00 PM (come a little early for a Wikipedia Art Remix treat!)
Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert have collaborated together on conceptually based performance works, interventions, writings, installations, videos, photography, and prints since meeting each other in 1994. Their work is about power and vulnerability; how it relates to relationship dynamics, society, and politics. Fletcher and Reichert use collaboration as a tool to integrate the negotiation for power into works of art.
Scott Kildall is an independent artist, who intervenes with objects and actions into various concepts of space. Nathaniel Stern is an artist, teacher, writer and provocateur, who works with interactive, participatory, networked and traditional forms.
Foot-in-Mouth and More
/by Scott KildallThis is a family of eight paper virus sculptures for the Gift Horse project, which has 12 more days to go as a Kickstarter project. You can donate here.
Top row (left to right): Andromeda Strain, Tobacco Mosaic Virus, T-Virus (from Resident Evil), Rabies, Smallpox
Bottom row: Foot-in-mouth disease, Snow Crash, Dengue Fever
The synopsis: Victoria Scott and myself are building a 13-foot high Trojan Horse for the 01SJ Biennial to celebrate the viral nature of art and ideas. For 10 days before the event, we will be leading public workshops where we will teach anyone to build a virus using basic papercraft techniques of cutting, folding, and gluing.
The hundreds of viruses will go into the belly of the horse and will be released into the San Jose Museum of Art on September 18th in a boisterous public ceremony.
Smallpox, Dengue Fever, Andromeda Strain and Tobacco Mosaic
/by Scott KildallThese are the first 4 viruses that are part of the Gift Horse project for the upcoming 01SJ Biennial, built originally as 3D models and then translated into paper sculptures. We are making 12 in total and stuffing hundreds of them inside the 13-foot high Trojan Horse.
From left to right, we have Tobacco Mosaic Virus — the first virus ever discovered, then Smallpox, historically significant since it was eradicated (save for two repositories in storage); then Andromeda Strain — an extra-terrestrial virus — from the 1971 movie. Finally there is Dengue Fever, which has no known vaccine, is usually non-fatal, and is spread through mosquitos and is significant due to its rampant increase from climate change, especially in non-western countries.
We based the physical models on these reference images, abstracting designs from them.
Andromeda Strain
Tobacco Mosaic Virus
Smallpox
Gift Horse-in-progress
/by Scott KildallAfter the first month, we are 31% funded on the 13-foot-high Gift Horse for the 01SJ Biennial. A good initial run, but its starting to feel a little tight, so please consider a Kickstarter donation to the Gift Horse project.
We have been busy working on the internal structure and final models in Sketchup. The skeleton proved to be an advanced wood project since the exterior printed digital panels (see model above) will be exactly fitted to make it look like giant-sized 3D model of a horse.
Working with our friend, Rob Bell, we have come up with this preliminary Sketchup design, which will be computer-cut with his ShopBot. This awesome piece of machinery, along with his expert skills, takes the 3D files and makes exactly the shape we need from a sheets of 4×8 wood.
We’re trying to build this as sustainably as possible with recycled wood and a bioboard cladding. This makes it more expensive, so again, please consider a donation to help us complete this project.
Finally, it will be stuffed full of viruses. Paper viruses, that is.
Kickstart the Gift Horse!
/by Scott KildallWe just launched the Kickstarter campaign for Gift Horse – a project for the 01SJ Biennial co-commissioned by the San Jose Museum of Art and ZERO1. We are seeking extra funding specifically to construct the sculpture from sustainable materials and also to teach several “build your own virus” workshops. Gift Horse is celebration of the viral nature of art and ideas.
The 13-foot high Trojan Horse will be filled with paper viruses, built by the public. On September 18th, it will be part of the Green Prix – a parade of “green” vehicles. Several costumed Greek warriors will push it through the streets of San Jose and into the museum. At 4pm on Sept. 18th, we will “gift” it to the museum. Check out the video and please consider a donation.
Gift Horse derived from No Matter (below), which was commissioned by New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (turbulence.org) and with both projects, we are partnering with Electric Works for the specialized printing techniques.
After Thought goes to Flux Factory
/by Scott KildallI just finished writing the software which tracks your emotions using brainwave analysis. From a flashcard-style test, it creates a custom video for each participant from a melange of silent clips such as balloons floating in the sky, a tapping foot and an angry dog. This weekend Flux Factory along with The Metric System will be presenting The Science Fair, (New York), where I will showing After Thought, which I developed as a resident artist at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center.
This project expands my deep interest in personal emotional spaces created by video. My first exploration was with Future Memories in 2006, which sources the “in-between” shots from Hollywood cinema to create a series of black-and-white videos which evoke feelings of displaced familiarity.
With my Home Stories (2008) project, which I call an “experimental narrative,” I use a silent, looped 5 minute edit from assorted 8mm home movies (including my own parents, now deceased) and invite 5 different storytellers to come up with narratives for the video.
I’m excited to see the possibilities. If you are in New York this weekend (June 5-6), you will be guaranteed a memorable experience by coming to The Science Fair.
Life 2.0
/by Scott KildallLast night I saw Life 2.0, a new film by a friend of mine, Jason Spingarn-Koff, which follows three storylines of people heavily involved in Second Life, an environment that I use in many artworks. As a veteran SL user and ex-documentary producer, I was deeply impressed.
Spingarn-Koff expertly mixes live footage with that from Second Life (SL) and delves into the desires, motivations and homes of four subjects, covering three facets of the bizarre “in-world” culture of SL: romantic relationships, running a fashion apparel business and a journey into self-discovery.
What we watch unfold is tension between traditional notions of family and vast amounts of time the interviewees spend in Second Life. The film portrays people who live on the extreme end of SL culture, spending upwards of 14 hours a day in the virtual environment. One woman lives in the basement of her parents house in Detroit and is often shown smoking cigarettes and operating her business while wearing a shabby pair of pajamas. Another person, a 30-something man isolates himself from his fiancée while operating his avatar — a pre-teen (non-sexualized girl. The third storyline is a romance between two people who met in SL while in unhappy marriages and are now sorting out their SL romance while they break up their families..
As I watched the beautiful machinima, I kept thinking “this is not the Second Life that I know” as my own viewing experiences are ripe chunky graphics and awkward render legs. Its one I like about the environment: the lo-fi nature of it, but that likely wouldn’t translate well to the movie screen. The production values in Life 2.0 are excellent.
Spingarn-Koff deploys the classic tactic of “tell me a story” and connects us to the intimate world of several strangers, who live the lives that we simply do not want. And he does it with compassion to the subjects, displaying his sincere intentions. The stories are touching and the tone is subtle. The subjects are not misanthropic as many would think. Mostly serious, the film is punctuated with striking humor such as when a lawyer files a lawsuit against other avatars for copyright infringement then reads the avatar names of the plaintifs such as “Stroker Serpentine” and “Munchflower Zeus”.
My main criticism is that he portrays only the addictive side of Second Life with people who overuse the environment and become mired in it. Life 2.0 is one of the few mainstream windows into this unique culture, and the film reinforces the media perception that this space is ripe with addicts. My personal experience is that this p.o.v is overstated as most people in SL are moderate users of the environment.
Don’t miss this one! Its on the festival circuit right now. Also, the interviews with Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, are fantastic. He looks like an avatar!
The next screening is in New York on May 11 at IFC Center.
Performa Book launch with Wrath of Kong
/by Scott KildallIf you are in New York this weekend, come on out to P.S. 1 this Saturday for the Performa 07 book launch. We’ll be there in spirit or maybe even in Second Life.
For Performa07, Second Front performed Wrath of Kong, which mixed the Kong Kong legend with the pop-culture iconography of Donkey Kong.
Featured in the catalogue essay on virtual worlds is an analysis of the early performance art works in Second Life, including work by the Mattes, my own Paradise Ahead series, Patrick Lichty, Gazira Babeli and of course Second Front.
Book Review: A Field Guide to Getting Lost
/by Scott Kildall“A Field Guide to Getting Lost”
by Rebecca Solnit
I began reading this book while I was lost. For the last several hours, I had been riding a rental bike around Berlin with its flat terrain, mixed-up architectural styles and streets whose names perpetually change as they twist along imaginary rivers. At a coffee break in a Turkish cafe in Kreuzberg, I read her introduction which described my day: a deliberate act of surrender where time ceases to matter. I had entered a geographic state of uncertainty — of being lost — where the mind can be fully present. Her field guide came in handy.
Embracing the geographically unfamiliar is an old concept, rooted in histories of adventurers and the imagination of childhood, but our society is drifting towards fixedness. Maps, knowledge and time are increasingly objectively quantified, such that Solnit’s field guide becomes well-needed.
After her powerful introduction follows a series of short plotless narratives— its hard to categorize these texts, which combine her personal history with larger cultural patterns.  She writes of the color blue and speaks of the infinite horizon, the science of molecules and of Yves Klein’s leaping into the void. She meanders about ruins, Blade Runner, punk rock and urban renewal. She discusses Borges’ labyrinths, the Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca and the film, Vertigo. These strands of thought all revolve around themes of getting lost and we fall into the words, not knowing what comes next.
While her personal narratives are less interesting than her ability to wind together historical threads, nevertheless, her own stories are the ones that activate the imagination. This book is a departure point. Like getting lost, it opens up possibilities rather than resolving them. I’d recommend reading it while you are traveling alone, and then you can apply the principles inside.