Tangible metaphor?
"One great thought can alter the future of the world. One
revelation. One dream. But who will dream that dream?
And who will make it real?" Ben Okri, Infinite Riches.
[1998, Orion Books Ltd.] pp. 5
" We go on living as if history is a dream. The miracle
is that we go on living and loving as best we can in
this enigma of reality." Ben Okri, Infinite Riches.
[1998, Orion Books Ltd] pp. 394
History seems to tell us one story of redemption over and

and core members in Canada, Australia and the UK, and

LL

intentionally avoids gendered and identifiable authorship.
Projects are developed and actualized from a range of
perspectives and locations. The group uses various forms
of online communication to plan and realize projects.
One theme that reoccurs throughout their collaborative
projects is an exploration of how the intangible and
tangible interact in the context of communications media
like the Internet. KIT tends to tie online activity with
"real-world" events. In their latest project, Infrasense, they
use a fusion of art installation with a web-based interactive
art component to link the virtual with the concrete.

over — the one where we try to start all over again with a
clean slate, a new space, an empty(ied) map, the New World
— not realizing the dirt we track in on our feet. At one time
we imagined the Internet to be this empty space, a promised
land for the free exchange of ideas unfettered by physical
difference, distance, or market interests; anyone could be
anything, do anything, in this abstract networked space.

Infrasense is a collaboration with Robert Saucier which
draws upon the computer virus metaphors of the Trojan
horse' and 'bug' to "take concepts from the digital world,
render them as physical objects and then return control of
the physical objects back to the digital landscape of the
world wide web" . In this interactive installation the
participant encounters several robotic Trojan horses and

The utopic dream was dispelled as reality appeared in the

large bugs which are interfaced with a website that

cracks where materiality and immateriality co-mingle. Such

participants can interact with. The web-based interaction

a complete historical break with the continuum of our

implicates the user in the creation of a computer bug or

social and economic relations was not possible. We forgot

virus. This activity is articulated in the gallery through the

that the Internet, in its "virtuality", was tied to the

generation of sound and movement of bugs in relation to

production and assembly of silicon chips, wires, and a

the Trojan horses. The artists hope to draw attention to the

language of translation (O's and l's). The ephemera of

experience of dissociation and distance that inhabiting

online communication became the exchange of goods,

digital space instantiates by extending virtual concepts

capital, and other social relations; this "free" space was

into the physical domain of the gallery.

restricted to those within the privileged seats of the global
economic order.

The metaphor of 'bug' or Virus' was brought to life by
computer hackers and, with Infrasense, Kit shows how this

Despite ongoing suspicion, the tools and trades of modern

metaphor becomes a real presence with consequences that

technology remain the dominant lens through which we

effects virtual and physical reality. In this way Infrasense

transform our world and ourselves. In this particular

functions as a sort of self-referential mirror that links the

technological paradigm "how" and "by whom" remains

intangibility of social values and online activity with

largely differentiated from "what" and "for whom", so that

concrete materials and manifestations. It shows us that

the consequences of our creative and consumptive actions

what we create and how we interpret that creation is a

may be concealed from us or at least held at a considerable

reflection of ourselves, our values, and beliefs. Real events

distance. (Perhaps that between first and third world

spark metaphors. Metaphors become real virtual bugs

paradigms)

that produce real consequences in our tangible world
Engaging with this web of relations is the beginning

The work produced under the artists' umbrella, KIT, engages
with the inter-related dimensions of technology and social
life. KIT is a framework for collaborations among architects,
writers, artists and programmers.
The group is made up
of collaborators

of understanding more about ourselves, and what
we are dreaming into existence.

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M