GVA: Digital games often create parallel, alternative experiences for its users. How do you relate to the complex relation between reality and simulation? How do you address this tension through your work?
Claire Evans: I try not to create explicit binaries between reality and simulation. The way I see it, artwork that hopes to make any kind of real impact needs to exist in both IRL and digital space; if it exists only in the “real” world, without documentation or some form of second life online, it might as well not exist, so limited is its potential reach. As the kids in America say, “pics or it didn’t happen.” But making work that is only online, or lives only inside of a game environment, is also lacking something important. One must always acknowledge the player, the kinesthetic or bodily experience, the physical hardware, the file. It’s best to create something that overlaps between several states of being. That’s how we all live now.