'Feed Lack Loop' by Micheál O'Connell, 6th March 2008

Cabaret Volt-where?

Provisional thoughts on Feed Lack Loop by Huw Bartlet:

“Second Life is the only place in the world where you can view the entire Banksy catalogue”

Central to Feed lack loop is the use of technology, not for it’s own sake, but for the sake of displaying a problem. By aligning a real life performer alongside a computer generated Second Life version, it is this distinction between two forms, as it were, that creates tension within the piece. Intentionally, the artist creates and then expands this dichotomy, so much so that a salient access point to this work is how we consider the concept of real life and the online community Second Life.

It is of contemporary currency that the uses and limitations of a technological world be examined. The objective here appears to be how the real world sets in motion things in the online world and then vice versa. We are invited to consider whether in this instance technology is a freeing agent for the artist, or whether technology creates limitations. How we articulate an understanding of these two worlds and how they oscillate is essential in forming, not simply our reading of the work, but how we respond to these concepts in reality.

Technology, in the form of Second Life is displayed here, used even, with a palpable sense of fanfare, heralding the coming of a new age. Whereby an online world can be created for people all over the world to enjoy. Feed lack loop however does not rest on this laurel, but persists in displaying the Second LIfe world in parallel with the one that created it. Although many online exhibition spaces exist, feed lack loop does not appear evangelical about this fact. Insisting that Real Life exists before Second Life and by creating a performance based on regimented movements, of an almost gymnastic rigour, achieves a real experience, superior to that of the technological one.

In a subtle nod to modernist performances of the past, the very nature of the ‘human as performer’ sits like a rupture to the audience. In many ways, this seems a trite point, but when considered in parallel with the pixel equivalent on the screen, the rupture is all that we feel. We are given noises, organic, non-recognisable squeals and yelps which serve as a form of displaced melody, unnerving and intense, this is real and this is happening but we are also aware that the equivalent is occurring where we, as individuals are not

Feed lack loop displays what for some is no more harmless than cinema, in that escapism and digital enjoyment is to be valued. Although never valorising technological achievement entirely, it does bring with it certain futuristic yearns for a world where art, its audiences and its market can be viewed entirely digitally.

Feed Lack Loop asks us to consider whether the conception of the luddite is two-fold. With the traditional ‘smasher of machines’ in favour of supposedly backward practices, vis a vis the view that smashes human physicality for something ultimately sterile and disengaging.

Artist's Evaluation

Video Documentation:

Rough Sample Footage 1 of 3: Intro (2 min)

Rough Sample Footage 2 of 3: Live (5 min)

Rough Sample Footage 3 of 3: Artist's Talk (4 min)

Peripheral Piece 1: 'Now Man'

Peripheral Piece 2: 'No Man'

Other Documentation:

Live chat in SL during Artist's Talk

Digiville at Lighthouse

Proposal for Avair at Turbulence

More at Turbulence

Artist in Residence at Ars Virtua

SLurl to Exhibition in Second Life

A Preview

Review 1

Review 2

Review 3

Review 4

Thanks to:

Mamen Rivera

Daniel Pryde-Jarman

James Morgan (and all at Ars Virtua, Turbulence, Avair)

Jamie Wylde (and all at Lighthouse, Digiville)

Billy Barrington

Dan Adam

Rebecca Peek