Ed Atkins
Ribbons
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London [link]
June 11 – Aug 25, 2014
Careening around Ribbons is an immersive experience that fulfills like the sickest amusement park ride- thrills and chills, but no plunging depths. Projected throughout the gallery is “Dave”, a buff, gloomy computer generated avatar reciting cryptic verse, singing melancholic songs and scrawling messages of alienation on his body while drinking himself into a stupor, a uniquely human existential quandary. Panels with scribbled drawings and enigmatic text add ambiguity. Yet, like self-absorbed Dave, the installation is intoxicating, nauseously pulling us in and pushing us out in the same breath; smart-phone captivating and eerily prescient of an increasingly shallow technologic future.
photo by Janeil Engelstad
