Metakammer

By Kirill Noskov

Can you imagine a world of infinite resources and unlimited possibilities? Metakammer takes inspiration from cabinets of curiosity — a precursor to the modern museum — by looking through the prisms of digital abundance, creators’ economy and new forms of ownership. In this work, Kirill Noskov investigates the modern notion of the Metaverse — a shared unlimited space in virtual reality that has no physical borders or scarcity of materials — while exploring what makes such infinite spaces so appealing by dissecting his personal hoardings of digital debris.

Research

The idea of Metaverse — the shared digital space which is made of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet — is a part of the current zeitgeist. Coronavirus pushed the adoption of all things digital a decade forward. Humans explore how to optimize cyberspaces for human cognition for the last two years. The possibility of infinite worlds to explore is closer than ever. Why is abundance and infinity so appealing to us?

The visual side of the work draws inspiration from Wunderkammers, precursors to modern museums, to introduce the viewer the concept of Metaverse. I explore the nature of collectorship, desire for ownership, abundance, and how modern platforms slowly shift toward a new direction.

Rainbow.me is a modern version of Wunderkammer — people display their NFT collectibles that were stored on a blockchain network

In TikTok "to create" often means to reflect or remix. This introduces unlimited content without properly identified beginning and the end. There are no original authors and unique "wonders" anymore — everything is a reply, comment, or reflection. Everything in the app is a part of a larger narrative. TikTok appeals to the human craving for strong emotional experiences rather than uniqueness of content.

Humans are attracted to the loops. The most attention is often captured by the "body genre" — melodrama, pornography, and horror movies. As Jane Hu writes for a RealLife Mag: "these genres are founded on a structure of repetition and suspense (think of melodrama’s cyclical endings, pornography’s “money shot,” horror’s serial killings)." Like in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace that introduced an idea of a film so satisfying that one can watch it repeatably to the death. TikTok feels like that — it's so addictive and every next TikTok looks as natural continuation of the previous one.

The same thing that makes the "Body Genre" appealing works for the GIFs

One of the principles of Metaverse is to "Be persistent – which is to say, it never “resets” or “pauses” or “ends”, it just continues indefinitely. It's like a TikTok, but a bit more real and spatial.

Sources

[1] Matthew Ball (2020) The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, Who Will Build It, and Fortnite. Available from https://www.matthewball.vc/all/themetaverse (accessed 20 May, 2021).

[2] Jane Hu (2019) Infinite Loops. Available from https://reallifemag.com/infinite-loops/ (accessed 20 May, 2021).

[3] Eugene Wei (2020) TikTok and the Sorting Hat. Available from https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2020/8/3/tiktok-and-the-sorting-hat (accessed 20 May, 2021).

[4] Jordana Cepelewicz (2019) The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces. Available from https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-brain-maps-out-ideas-and-memories-like-spaces-20190114/ (accessed 20 May, 2021)

[5] Mike Pepi (2019) Is a Database a Museum? Available from https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/69294/is-a-database-a-museum (accessed 20 May, 2021)

Data

I've used items that I've collected on a "hoarders" platform Are.na. During my time on the platform, I've dug up over 500 things over the internet and identified them as unique or valuable. I've sorted them based on some abstract idea and commonality beyond the algorithmic sorting mechanism (Date, Size, Format, etc.). It's the same way as owners of Cabinet of Curiosities collected their items. Everyone can collect a picture — the curation is more valuable than a creation.

Among the images that I have on Are.na, I've chosen the ones that provoked a strong emotional response and could be categorized as a "Body Genre". The data was collected manually — on Are.na users can get a direct link to the original image/video/link just by clicking on it.

Paid customers of Are.na can connect unlimited number of materials

My largest collection up-to-date consist of 94 blocks. It's not rare to see boards with over 2000 pictures and URLs

Downloaded Are.na images and gifs that I've used for my materials. I've subjectively chosen those that reminded me of the body genre

Prototypes & Experiments

Previous work on the same topic of Wunderkammer used my personal data directly — passport, ID, face and student card.

While I was thinking about the infinite nature of Metaverse, I remembered how I once had an issue with Microsoft Teams and shared my own screen.

First idea was to make installation interactive, but I realized that there is nothing for the user in this interaction.

Instead, I've decided to make a user an observer that looks at self-reinforcing meditative "metaverse". Infinite cabinet of curiosities.

I was questioning whether I should add an extra layer that reminds the viewer about physically run infrastructure of the Metaverse. I doubt it — the main conversation here is about a looping nature of Metaverse rather than its dependency of physical world.

I've tried to make the rooms in the metaverse at first

Instead of using rooms and square-shaped empty spaces, I can make the "cuts" in the gif that will be looped in a background

Outcomes

Metakammer is a video installation that creates an infinite digital space that consist of images, videos and objects