Kritical Art Works in Second Life

Kritical Works In Sl

The University of Wolverhampton purchased an island on the SL grid in July 2007 initially for the purpose of pedagogical and doctoral research in digital media. Since then Kriti island has developed to host a number of events, research projects and experimental works. Following the first inWorld exhibition on Kriti in 2008, and five years into the new SL platform itself, this online space rapidly assumed a sense of real presence for those involved and became a focus for collaboration, nationally to the UK and internationally. The Kritical Works in SL exhibition showed the work of ten artists in Second Life and as part of the Inter-Society of Electronic Art event (ISEA) in Singapore. The project aimed to bring together a range of art works from the SL community to explore whether common themes were emerging for creative practice on the platform: Where there perhaps certain characteristics of the virtual fabric of the SL space? Was there a possible maturing of the languages and spaces within SL? Was there a commonality of approach to creativity and aesthetic values? The works can speak for themselves but a clearer explanation of intent was required from the artists themselves towards clarifying the project questions. Each artist contributed a paragraph on their work and the different approaches to describing their work is very telling, some being poetic, some technical, some concerned with aesthetics, some with experimenting with the toolset. Five examples of the artist texts (in their own words) and short bios are given below alongside an image of their work.