A decapitated head bounces down a neverending staircase. Blood spills and splatters on the steps. Fear not, this isn’t a real bonce but a computer generated image, ‘Counting 1’ by 32-year-old British artist Ed Atkins. Known for digitally created worlds where avatars talk (often incoherently), Atkins has taken over the Serpentine Sackler Gallery to premiere his multi-screen work ‘Ribbons’.
Audio filters through the space, drawing you into the central galleries where an inebriated protagonist, Dave (pictured), rambles on in a philosophising monologue. Alone, chain-smoking with a glass of scotch in his tattooed hand, he bursts into song with melancholy enthusiasm. The experience continues with projection screens leaning against the back wall featuring more of the disenchanted Dave. Another detached head comes in and out of focus attempting to verbalise its thoughts but never quite managing to do so.
No doubt many of us will sympathise with, or even recognise ourselves in Dave, who likes a little singsong after one too many. We can also appreciate the complexities of co-existing in a virtual sphere. But Atkins’s simulation is riddled with confusion and sadness. Maybe we’re not supposed to get it. Or, this being the immaterial virtual world, maybe his point is that there is literally nothing to get and, like Dave, we search in vain.
Freire Barnes