Objects of Virtual Desire explores immaterial production in a virtual world, and if and how this can be transferred into an economy of material production. Objects produced and owned by inhabitants in the online world Second Life have been collected, along with their owner’s personal story, and their physical reproductions will be sold via a web shop.

When buying the materialised object one will also receive an image of the immaterial object with its original Second Life owner.

What is immaterial value-creation and can it be materialised? What does it mean to use a virtual world as a site of production?

The issues raised are relevant in a wider context, as value-production in the “post-fordist” era has become increasingly immaterial. Nike, for example, exploits the physical function of a shoe to create and market immaterial values, so pervasive that the shoe itself becomes almost virtual.

Via networked_performance.
Related: Front’s Representation of Things, computer game used as a design tool. The work questions whether a designed object can exist without being materialized; Virtual club to rock game culture.