Towards A Consensual Hallucination (Searching), 2024
Marker pen on canvas
30 x 30 x 2 cm
Towards A Consensual Hallucination (Searching) (2024) was part of Logging Off, a duo exhibition by Bob Bicknell-Knight and Rosa-Maria Nuutinen at The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk, UK, 27th February – 6th April 2024.
The exhibition explored the seductive nature of video games worlds, digital addiction, climate collapse, apocalypse anxieties and 24/7 hypercapitalism. The exhibition reflects upon how the video games we play are created, how our lives are becoming increasingly disconnected because of new technologies and a general feeling of malaise towards the contemporary moment.
Towards A Consensual Hallucination (Searching) was part of a series of works on canvas by Bicknell-Knight included in the exhibition. Collectively titled Towards A Consensual Hallucination, the simple line drawings and paintings depict distorted figures in varying states of emotion. The series was partially created using DALL-E 2, a commercial artificial intelligence (AI) system that enables users to create new images with text to graphics prompts. Bicknell-Knight fed the AI with images of patent drawings for VR devices, with the image outcomes being his own abstracted patents of future technologies, created in part by an all-seeing AI predicting the potential futures of this technology. The image outcomes were then edited by Bicknell-Knight and transcribed onto the canvas.
Towards A Consensual Hallucination (Searching) has been included in the following exhibitions:
– Logging Off w/ Rosa-Maria Nuutinen. At The Cut Arts Centre, Halesworth, UK, 27th February – 6th April 2024.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 