Art, Virtual Worlds and the Emergent Imagination

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for the emergent imagination that arises out of the transitional spaces created in avatar-mediated online space. Through four categories of transitional space identified in artworks created in virtual worlds, the paper argues that, as the virtual remains connected to time, the imagination becomes connected to space. The author’s analysis of the imaginative effects of artworks presented in the two virtual (and physical) gallery exhibitions of the Kritical Works in SL project demonstrates a mode of artistic exploitation of the particular combination of user-generated and avatar-mediated space.