ASSET FLIP

A series of paintings throughout the gallery explore how video games are created and the climate crisis. The works are hybrid paintings, beginning as digitally fabricated images within the video game development software Unity. The images are then printed onto canvas, stretched and painted onto with acrylic paint, with the offline artist’s hand interacting with the original digital image. The painting method explores the tension between the digital and physical sides of Bicknell-Knight’s practice and is a collaboration between his digital and physical working methods.

The paintings in the series depict several animals, from a chicken in DREAD (2024) to a deer in EXPIRE (2024), at the precise moment that they’re falling to the floor, never to rise again, accompanied by words associated with destruction and decay. Everything you see in the paintings, from the animals to the trees, has been purchased as a prefabricated (prefab) asset. The assets in the paintings are simple 3D models with low polygon counts, like animals and plant life, usually appearing in multiple places across different video games. The use of these models, purchased by game developers rather than being made themselves, is a contemporary coping mechanism harnessed to accelerate the production process of virtual experiences. The paintings use the idea of the prefab as a vehicle for speaking about how the world is in an unstoppable free fall towards a global climate crisis.

Several floor and wall-based sculptures appear throughout the gallery; physical reproductions of video game assets, 3D printed and sporadically presented within gridded structures. The sculptures range from mouldy mushrooms, like CRASH (2024), to life-size visualisations of deceased animals, with ANNIHILATION (Grid) (2024) depicting a cat, exploring ideas related to the political climate in the UK and our rapidly decaying world. Each of the sculptures in the series is printed with no perimeter, with the different objects shedding their outer, simplistic armour, to explore the inner beauty and intricacies of these seemingly uncomplicated objects and the ways they’re used within video games.

These sculptures are produced using Polylactic Acid (PLA), a thermoplastic polyester made from plant starch. By producing versions or iterations of both animals and plants in this material, the sculptural works are effectively transformed back into the original natural elements that they are visually depicting. Like the paintings by Bicknell-Knight, the sculptures are emblazoned with words associated with destruction and decay, asking the question, at what point do we escalate? Many of the sculptures are positioned within structures made from painted MDF, replicating the digital space that creators first encounter when beginning a project in Unity; a grey and white grid.

Utilising the same 3D models of animals present in the paintings and sculptures, two films and an accompanying soundtrack dominate one half of the gallery. In Procession (2024) these animals, now animated, are seen walking from one end of the screen to the other in an endless march, towards the future and their own demise. Final Exit (2024) depicts this more literally, with the same animals repeatedly falling to the digital floor as they are pulled in and out the screen, slicing their bodies to expose their empty innards.

Exploring ideas surrounding our present, hyperconnected world, Asset Flip considers our collective unease for the near future.