Taylor Hokanson's and Chris Reilly's interactive video installation The Definition Of Is consists of two parts: A sculpture standing in the actual gallery and a reproduction of the gallery space displayed in a single-channel interactive video. This virtual environment is also occupied by a group of digitally generated objects consisting of a floating, undulating orb surrounded by cryptic symbols. This virtual object is submerged in darkness until a participant presents the sculpture to the projected image, thus illuminating the virtual scene. The viewer can intervene in the virtual space by taking the sculpture and moving it around in the gallery space.

When the audience engages with "The Definition of Is", they occupy two versions of the same space simultaneously. The virtual space tracks the actions of the participant even as it subtracts their form from the environment. Conversely, while the physical space contains the body of the audience member, here their actions have no effect.
(T.H., C.R.)

The installation brings into question the definition of space: As the gallery space is transformed to a virtual space, a three-dimensional room becomes a two-dimensional projection. But both define the gallery room. Thus the common definition of space is broadened.

With his interaction the viewer becomes part of the definition process. He adds to the identity of the sculpture when he determines its movement through the gallery room. The virtual object responds to this motion with sympathetic changes in its own state. Here the audience, not the artist, makes fundamental decisions about the relationship between elements that make up the artwork. The work is complete, but never finished, as physical flux is required for the concept of the work to exist.

This interactive mode recalls the experience of viewing in general: a physical relationship between the viewer and the viewed, paired with the conceptual discovery of decoding the information an object contains.
(T.H., C.R.)

The definition of an object depends on the nature of its tangible qualities: size, shape, material, texture, etc. Yet every object also exists as a concept without physical form. If we can conceive of a thing, then that thing exists. This dual existence of a thing as it breaches the boundary between the potential and the actual is The Definition of Is.

TAYLOR HOKANSON is American artist based in Chicago.
CHRIS REILLY received his BFA with a focus on New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. He is currently employed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he works and teaches in the IT, design and architecture departments. Since 2003, Chris has had several group and solo exhibitions in the US and abroad.

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