Tag: Ed Atkins

Ed Atkins (born 1982) is a prominent British contemporary artist celebrated for his innovative video art and poetry. Based in Berlin, Atkins is also a lecturer at Goldsmiths College in London. Described by Swiss curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist as “one of the great artists of our time,” Atkins has made significant contributions to the art world.

Raised in Stonesfield, a village near Oxford, Atkins was influenced by his artistic family—his mother, an art teacher, and his father, a graphic artist. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Central Saint Martins and completed his master’s degree in Fine Art at The Slade School, University College London.

Through a practice that involves layering apostrophic text with high-definition video, Ed Atkins creates work where “the suck and the bloom of death and decay are channeled through technological tools at the height of contemporary image management.” His video oeuvre consists largely of stock footage and CGI avatars animated using motion capture and dramatic commercial sound. Many of these videos feature a computer-generated avatar as an isolated protagonist, whose poetic soliloquies intimately address the viewer. This protagonist, often surrounded by generic stock images and cinematic special effects, evokes the uncanny valley effect.

In “Us Dead Talk Love” (2012), a 37-minute two-channel video work, the avatar speaks on finding an eyelash under their foreskin, sparking a meditation on authenticity, self-representation, and the possibility for love. Atkins consciously produces most of his work on a computer. From this laptop-based process and the works’ focus on video technology, he probes the material structure of digital video. Influenced by structural film artists like Hollis Frampton, Atkins explores the technological possibilities of new media. A prolific writer, his video works often derive from his writing.

Atkins has had solo exhibitions at Tate Britain, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Chisenhale Gallery, MoMA PS1, Serpentine Gallery, Palais de Tokyo, and Kunsthalle Zürich. At the Serpentine Memory Marathon in 2012, he premiered “DEPRESSION,” a performance work using projection, digitally altered voice, and chroma key mask to simulate cinematic techniques. In conjunction with the Serpentine Extinction Marathon of 2014, Atkins produced www.80072745, a domain inviting users to sign up for a one-sided decade-long email correspondence.

Explore the captivating works of Ed Atkins, a visionary in contemporary art.