As part of Frankfurter Positionen, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main presents the first institutional solo exhibition of Ed Atkins (*1982 in Oxford, GB) in Germany.
Under the programmatic title "Ich Reloaded - Das Subjekt im digitalen Zeitalter", Frankfurter Positionen 2017 is dedicated to the question of the extent to which the definition and construction of the self-image is changing in the digital age and what role the increasingly unreflective handling or disclosure of personal data on the Internet plays in this.
Ed Atkins is considered a pioneer of a young generation of artists who use digital image technology to create an immersive and hyperreal visual world and reflect on existential questions of being human in the digital age in this artificial parallel world. His works thus illuminate a general social development that fundamentally questions the established self-image of the subject.
Atkins has in recent years created a unique body of work consisting of text-based, performative and installation video works. He creates a virtual protagonist - an alter ego of sorts - who recurs in his works and whose profile he continually develops. This digitally generated figure oscillates between hyperreality and radical artificiality, experiencing existential states such as loneliness, alienation, death or illness. Pseudo-realistically constructed and dynamically edited, the computer-generated high definition images with their intense visuality affect visitors as a comprehensive emotional experience of space and sound.
On a meta-level, his works deal with the question of the influence of automation, technologization and digitalization on our individual reality of life, our consciousness, our self-image and the associated construction of contemporary concepts of identity. The exhibition at MMK 1 presents a selection of the artist's latest works.
In the winter semester 2016/2017, Ed Atkins was a visiting professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule as part of Frankfurter Positionen 2017. Together with the students, he is developing an independent format on the theme of the exhibition.
Source and further information: http://mmk-frankfurt.en/exhibitions/exhibition-details/article/ed_atkins_corpsing/?no_cache=1&cHash=3c20505a244471bc661c09c984c8461e
