ED ATKINS
ENTROPY OF A BIASED COIN
Cabinet, London
December 03 – February 06, 2021
Press release
Refuse.exe, the projected element and main piece of Entropy of a Biased Coin - Ed Atkin's new show at Cabinet - is a two-channel real-time 3D simulation, authored in a custom version of the Unreal Engine: a software development environment used to make video games. The artwork is one work, split across two screens - the upper screen in the ground floor gallery, the lower screen in the basement gallery.
Objects fall through the upper screen, freezing momentarily, before continuing their descent, eventually landing in the basement. Refuse.exe is not a video, it’s an app, running on a high-end custom PC and each run-through of Refuse.exe is unique. The objects drop in the same sequence and at the same time per play through – but their movement while dropping, their landing, and their accumulation differ every time, at the whim of the physics simulated. In addition to the above two-channel projection, the shows includes a number of new drawings and embroideries on fabric, on view from December 3 until February 6, 2021.
Featured image: Courtesy the Artist and Cabinet, London