Conceptual artist Scott Kildall is a troll, says Wikipedia founder

May 3, 10:29 AMSF Contemporary Art ExaminerMicaela Van Zwoll

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Is Scott Kildall a troll?  Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, thinks so.  In an article by Jason Lee Miller, published in Web Pro News yesterday morning, chronicling the story, Wikipedia made a lot of hoo-ha about Kildall’s new site, Wikipedia Art, published last Valentine’s Day (02.14.09).  Wales stated that Kildall is a troll ‘dedicated to vandalizing Wikipedia as a publicity stunt.’  Kildall’s site, Wikipedia Art (created in collaboration with fellow tech aficionado and internet artist, Nathaniel Stern), defines itself as a site that ‘documents performance art work that promotes critical analyses of the nature of knowledge and Wikipedia’ and it clearly denounces all affiliation with Wikipedia.  That doesn’t sound troll-ish or like vandalism to me.

Who is Scott Kildall?  Accused of being financially well endowed, he’s a Second Life citizen, and yes, a true-blue academically inclined working artist.  A peek at Kildall’s resume reveals degrees in political philosophy (Brown University), fine art and technology (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), along with contemporary (mixed media and conceptual) exhibitions in Ireland, San Francisco, New York and Chicago, among others.  Working at what he calls ‘the intersection of media culture and human memory’ Kildall describes his work as a collaborative effort to appropriate events that bend a few rules of consent, yet allow interaction between the artist and the viewer.  The artwork grows from things past and new, relies on the viewer’s active participation, and transforms the viewer into a vital component of an interactive and highly personalized artwork.

To meet Scott Kildall, he looks like an average guy.  Trim, neat, with very lively bright blue eyes and a genuine warm smile, he’s approachable and friendly.  He’s quick to let you know he’s smart too, possessing a respectful and attentive demeanor.  When discussing his work, he articulates a wide range of ideas with a few rapid verbal strokes, encompassing computer generated media, video, print making, sculpture and performance, expressing a desire for a human connection.

So what is the hoo-ha about anyway?  Kildall created a Wikipedia page inviting artistic interventions, or change.  Interventions are an aspect of performance art that have become fun and popular as the 21st century progresses.  They take place in public arenas generally, from quiet interventions in San Francisco’s North Beach to flash mobs in Antwerp, Belgium, New York’s Grand Central Station to public squares in Singapore, and are created by quiet artists working alone, collectives of artists or multinational corporations advertising a product.  The point is that public interventions invite public dialogue in a surprisingly approachable and forthright manner, and enjoy an artistic life well beyond the narrow confines of traditional conventions of fine art.

In the case of Wikipedia Art, the original idea was to present an artistic intervention online on Wikipedia site, and allow that art to be editable by anyone.  The rules were identical to Wikipedia’s posted guidelines, while the goal was to add another dimension to performance art, via the internet (as Wikipedia is a highly successful internet site with a multitude of users at any given time), synthesizing Wikipedia’s ever changing definitive and encyclopedic format with concepts of artistic interventions.  Wales complains that it was ‘disappointingly easy’ for ‘a group of trolls’ to manufacture a publicity stunt for the media.  And while he and his attorneys have said they weren’t threatening Kildall; Kildall and his attorneys think they were threatening, as did lawyers from Public Citizen and Electronic Frontier Foundation.  It seems there is a consensus - Wikipedia did threaten Kildall and the Wikipedia Art intervention effort.

When I first announced Kildall’s Wikipedia Art intervention effort, I received a handful of inquiries from artists in Europe and the US, who were attracted to the novel opportunity to participate in a public internet forum (I only received a handful of inquiries because Wikipedia shut down Kildall’s site with incredible speed).  The inquiries had nothing to do with Wales’ accusations of vandalism and cyber squatting.  The artists viewed Kildall’s effort as an opportunity to contribute to a public event in an interesting and artistic manner.  This is an internet world, where we post and tweet and share our lives with countless nameless strangers.  People want to participate.

Miller wrote that Wikipedia itself is a continuously evolving art form that thrives on continuous public information and updates, and closer interpretation of his and Wales’ statements lend to the only difference between the two is that Kildall’s work is so subjective it might defy the narrow boundaries of Wikipedia’s guidelines.  It seems that’s what art is all about anyway – how does one define art for a collective whole?  The discussion on what constitutes art will continue, as Kildall’s intervention morphs from an audience driven interactive internet site to an esoteric discussion on authoritarian hegemony and public interventions and on to other matters.  Wikipedia Art’s goal of public intervention was met, although much differently than what I thought, to a developmental forum addressing social commentaries of political philosophy, in this case, internet politics.  And, it does seem a real shame that Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, failed to appreciate the interactive nature of Kildall’s effort as another development to his own effort involving the public, and an enhancement to his site.  Collaboration with Kildall could result in a fabulously thriving stream of traffic to Wikipedia where artists worldwide create and continue to develop Wikipedia Art.  As an internet rube, I can’t help wonder, what is the worth of that kind of traffic in crass financial terms anyway?

So, Kildall is not anymore a troll or cyber squatting vandal than the reader who edits his Facebook page, or comments to a favorite blog or online news story.  If anything, this whole thing is beginning to smell like a selfish little publicity stunt by Wikipedia to exclude and dismiss an internet phenomenon – public intervention – demonstrated by the huge successes of YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, and it’s own format – the world of Wiki.  Kudos to Kildall and his band of tech visionaries Nathaniel Stern and Patrick Lichty for the discussion.

For more thoughts, please go to the following links:
http://kildall.com/, http://nathanielstern.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wikipedia_Art,
http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/41713#54671, http://rhizome.org/editorial/2360