Known for his high-definition videos that defy narrative conventions, Ed Atkins works with filmic and text-based forms in technological transition.
Read MoreThe artist considers HD technology deathlike because of how it intensifies the visibility of the filmed subject, creating an image that prioritises its own representation over the language, character, and emotions of the figures it depicts.
Often creating installations that include collage, drawing, and other mediums, the artist deploys this bodiless movie format to highlight the conflicting intimacies that today's mechanisms of cultural production represent and allow us to achieve.
Employing spoken and subtitled dialog that evokes the romance and horror of Gothic literature, Atkins inflects his melodramas with an array of post-production effects designed to imitate the analog qualities of traditional cameras and lighting equipment.
He uses various motion-capturing devices to combine video footage with computer-generated 3D models and digital textures, playing visual conventions against those of sound composition and editing. Sudden transitions mark his work, drawing our attention to the artifice of contemporary "film" in its accelerating transition to new digital formats capable of remarkable kinds of simulation.
