Uploaded October 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
As is evidenced by the work Actual Objects have showcased during their Fact residency, Rick & Claire Farin, Nick Vernet, Cole Daly, Case Miller, Collin Fletcher, Theo Karon and every one of the talented team of artists, directors and programmers they collaborate with have some extremely big ideas. So big, in fact, that they need to build new worlds to contain them, marrying bleeding edge technology with a diverse range of references, both contemporary and traditional, in complex and interconnected systems. Between the studio’s sci-fi sound design, video game engine aesthetic and intricate, alien avatars, you would be forgiven for assuming Actual Objects might be trying to predict some far flung future, but you’d also be missing the point. Though their heady blend of computational philosophy, object-oriented ontology and multidisciplinary architectural theory does seem like a particularly sexy way to think prophetically, each member of the team is dedicated to parsing the multi-platform blizzard of the here and now. “I often find this misplaced sense of futurity around science fiction and I think Actual Objects is interested more so in a focused examination of the present, this hypermodern aspect that actually bears the signature of what we typically think of as science fictional,” asserts Karon
“It’s not really speculation about the future so much as it is a close look at this very moment. There’s a thought from William Gibson that the future is already here, it just isn’t very evenly distributed. However you encounter this, or any bit of media, it becomes flattened on the screen, your specific experience of it has a certain materiality right then, but that’s totally transitory. The actual object, the thing itself, is somehow behind the screen, it’s vast, it’s always changing, and so you’re only ever kind of tapping into it at one specific intersection.” It’s this experience that Actual Objects seeks to translate into sound and light, creating digital ecosystems imbued with physical heft, encompassing systems that link back into our lives in front of the screen. Refuting antiquated distinctions between the natural world and the technology with which they build digital ones, Actual Objects offer a different lens through which we view our every day. It’s in this shift in perspective that we might very well gain some insights into what our world, however we choose to define it, might begin to look like. “If we want to talk about what’s going to happen in the next 25 years, it’s going to be about understanding layers of nested systems,” suggests Miller. “How we interact with those nested systems, how those nested systems interact with each other, where the touch points are, where the choke points are and what the vulnerabilities are. From there we can start to build narratives that show how we as people are going to move through these environments, with this kind of ubiquitous ambient computing reworking our entire cosmology.”
For more information about Actual Objects you can visit the studio website and follow the studio on Instagram.
As is evidenced by the work Actual Objects have showcased during their Fact residency, Rick & Claire Farin, Nick Vernet, Cole Daly, Case Miller, Collin Fletcher, Theo Karon and every one of the talented team of artists, directors and programmers they collaborate with have some extremely big ideas. So big, in fact, that they need to build new worlds to contain them, marrying bleeding edge technology with a diverse range of references, both contemporary and traditional, in complex and interconnected systems. Between the studio’s sci-fi sound design, video game engine aesthetic and intricate, alien avatars, you would be forgiven for assuming Actual Objects might be trying to predict some far flung future, but you’d also be missing the point. Though their heady blend of computational philosophy, object-oriented ontology and multidisciplinary architectural theory does seem like a particularly sexy way to think prophetically, each member of the team is dedicated to parsing the multi-platform blizzard of the here and now. “I often find this misplaced sense of futurity around science fiction and I think Actual Objects is interested more so in a focused examination of the present, this hypermodern aspect that actually bears the signature of what we typically think of as science fictional,” asserts Karon
“It’s not really speculation about the future so much as it is a close look at this very moment. There’s a thought from William Gibson that the future is already here, it just isn’t very evenly distributed. However you encounter this, or any bit of media, it becomes flattened on the screen, your specific experience of it has a certain materiality right then, but that’s totally transitory. The actual object, the thing itself, is somehow behind the screen, it’s vast, it’s always changing, and so you’re only ever kind of tapping into it at one specific intersection.” It’s this experience that Actual Objects seeks to translate into sound and light, creating digital ecosystems imbued with physical heft, encompassing systems that link back into our lives in front of the screen. Refuting antiquated distinctions between the natural world and the technology with which they build digital ones, Actual Objects offer a different lens through which we view our every day. It’s in this shift in perspective that we might very well gain some insights into what our world, however we choose to define it, might begin to look like. “If we want to talk about what’s going to happen in the next 25 years, it’s going to be about understanding layers of nested systems,” suggests Miller. “How we interact with those nested systems, how those nested systems interact with each other, where the touch points are, where the choke points are and what the vulnerabilities are. From there we can start to build narratives that show how we as people are going to move through these environments, with this kind of ubiquitous ambient computing reworking our entire cosmology.”
For more information about Actual Objects you can visit the studio website and follow the studio on Instagram.
