Vendor Trash II, 2022
3D printed translucent PLA plastic, plastic crates
71 x 97 x 95 cm
Vendor Trash II (2022) is a sculptural installation, part of a larger project exploring the many facets of non-player characters (NPCs) in video games, from their looping lives to the repetitive dialogue that they bark at the player character, as a metaphor for the boundaries of human action within an increasingly algorithmic, surveilled existence.
The work was produced for Non-Player Character, a solo exhibition by Bob Bicknell-Knight at Galeria.Kollektiva, Schillerstraße 30, 34117 Kassel, DE, 29th July – 21st August 2022.
NPCs are characters in video games that are controlled by the computer. They have a predetermined set of behaviours programmed by artificially intelligent (AI) software. The lives of these characters revolve around the player. They are stuck in the game world, doomed to repeat the same day for eternity, waiting to be interacted with.
The sculptural installation explores collectible items in video games, objects within different game worlds that can be collected by a player, and more specifically vendor trash, items found in video games that serve little or no use to the player, other than to be sold to NPC vendors for in-game money. This mainly occurs in role-playing games (RPGs), with the most well-known types of vendor trash being extremely poor-quality equipment or items that are literally useless other than their value to vendors. The sculptures included in the installation feature a series of useless items from the video game series Fallout. These items, ranging from a garden gnome to a human skull, have been 3D printed with translucent filament and are exhibited in a number of stacked plastic crates, which were displayed throughout the gallery, referencing elements of the archive, storage facilities and industrial globalisation.
Vendor Trash II has been included in the following exhibitions:
– Non-Player Character. At Galeria.Kollektiva, Schillerstraße 30, 34117 Kassel, DE, 29th July – 21st August 2022.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 