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7-segments calculator physicalizing Second Life

dcuartiellesFebruary 6th, 2008

The Swedish/Danish duo Gansing/Hilfling has hacked an old calculator to show Second Life’s virtual economics. With the help of Korean media artists Mr. Kim and Mr. Seok, resident designers at K3 – Malmö University, who gave a hand on the technical side of things, an Arduino board was installed inside an old office calculator that would read data from the virtual world to materialize it both on the display and on the calculator’s paper-roll.

Here the official press release:

Calculating “Danmark” – Linda Hilfling/Kristoffer Gansing
February 1 -12 at The Danish National Gallery and in SL
Virtual Moves www.taggingart.org, www.smk.dk

An intervention into the virtual “Danmark”: During two weeks, an old office calculating machine performs the virtual economics of Second Life.
In 2007 the Danish state joined the hype of the Second Life economy by creating the Island “Danmark”, set up and run by the Danish Tax Ministry. This virtual Denmark reminds Danish Second Life entrepreneurs that the virtual economy is as real as any other and therefore also taxable. But how large is actually the Danish money flow in Second Life?
Calculating Danmark is a comment to how Second Life is branded on its economical possibilities, to such an extent that even nation states feel it is important to join the global venture of this Californian online Disneyland. The calculating machine connects to statistics at SL’s webpage and continuously calculates the average amount of money being spent by Danish users in the virtual world. The data is added together and printed by the machine on a receipt roll. The result is a small amount of money but a lot of paper spilling on the floor.

More images:

http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark1.jpg
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark2.jpg
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark3.jpg
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark4.jpg
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark5.jpg
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark6.jpg

And some videos:

http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark-mov1.MPG
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark-mov2.MPG
http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~lhilfling/calculating_danmark/hilfling-gansing_calculating_danmark-mov3.MPG

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