BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT

Vendor Trash, 2023
3D printed translucent PLA plastic, plastic crates, transit blankets
Dimensions variable

Vendor Trash (2023) 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 Klaipėda Exhibition Hall, Klaipėda, LT, 20th January – 19th February 2023. It is the evolution of the same work which was originally produced for Non-Player Character, a solo exhibition by Bob Bicknell-Knight at Galeria Kollektiva, 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, combined with transit blankets, referencing elements of the archive, storage facilities and industrial globalisation.

Vendor Trash has been included in the following exhibitions:

– Non-Player Character, curated by Pita Arreola-Burns and Elliott Burns (Off Site Project). At Klaipėda Exhibition Hall, Klaipėda, LT, 20th January – 19th February 2023.