BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT

Decline, 2025
4K video with sound
24 min 0 sec

The protagonist of Decline (2025), a 24-minute CGI film by Bob Bicknell-Knight, is a human-like figure from a previous artwork from Bicknell-Knight, Rigged (2024).

Rigged is a life-size 3D printed figure, covered with multiple layers of concrete and exhibited chained to the wall or ceiling, its form being inspired by the underlying rigging and bone structure of virtual beings in video game worlds.

The figure is a marionette or crash dummy of sorts, tethered to a single spot whilst being only controlled by its head, reflecting human life and the lack of control one has over their own destiny. Instead of having a face, the figure’s head is hollowed out, replaced with a clock mechanism resembling a lily flower.

The work was originally 3D modelled using Blender. After the work was produced the figure was then 3D scanned and brought back into the digital space, where Bicknell-Knight spent time animating its hybrid body.

In Decline the figure is seen falling down an endless expanse, its body parts flailing uncontrollably. Set to a melodic soundtrack with religious connotations, the work continues Bicknell-Knight’s ongoing interest in control and time, exploring the idea of being in free fall.

Liked Rigged, which initially responded to the bone structure of video game avatars, the movement in Decline was inspired by ragdoll physics within game worlds. When a character dies within a given game space, rather than simply falling to the floor, if a game has ragdoll physics the characters’ limbs will flail uncontrollably, sometimes to comic effect, as if all the bones in its body have been inexplicably broken. The film is the embodiment of this effect, with its seemingly endless duration transforming the usually comic effect into one that becomes painfully serious.

Decline has been included in the following exhibitions:

– Waiting For The Light, curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight. At At [Senne], Brussels, BE, 23rd April – 3rd May 2026.
– What Remains in the Palm, curated by Saulė Noreikaitė. At Kaunas Artists’ House Gallery, Kaunas, LT, 6th – 28th March 2026.
– Ars Electronica Campus Exhibition. At the University of Arts Linz, Linz, AT, 3rd – 7th September 2025.
– Walkthrough. At Kuressaare Castle, Saaremaa, EE, 13th July – 4th August 2025.