Bob Bicknell-Knight (b. 1996, Ipswich, United Kingdom) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator currently based in Tallinn, Estonia, working with digital media producing films, paintings, sculptures and installations. His practice explores ideas surrounding time, control and degradation, with a particular interest in the underlying mechanics of video game worlds and power structures that proliferate online and in new forms of technology. Bicknell-Knight is influenced and inspired by our pre-apocalyptic present, climate collapse, virtual worlds and 24/7 hyper-capitalism.
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Bicknell-Knight is currently enrolled at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) in Tallinn, Estonia, undergoing a two year Masters in Contemporary Art (2024 - 2026). During this time he is continuing to expand upon recent projects, digging deeper into the philosophy and minutiae behind the production of games whilst broadening his own reflections and knowledge regarding loss, decay and societal collapse in relation to the climate crisis.
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Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, a platform for art that’s specialised mainly in digital art since its creation in May 2016, and has worked with hundreds of artists since its inception. Through the platform he curates online and offline exhibitions, hosts an infrequent residency programme and has designed and edited a series of books, focusing on a number of broad themes from contemporary modes of surveillance to fake news and video game culture.
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Selected solo and duo exhibitions include Asset Flip at SEAGER, London, UK (2024); Logging Off, duo show with Rosa-Maria Nuutinen at The Cut, Haleworth, UK (2024); Sunday School at Number 1 Main Road, Berlin, Germany (2023); Insert Coin at CABLE DEPOT, London, United Kingdom (2023); Non-Player Character at KlaipÄ—da Exhibition Hall, KlaipÄ—da, Lithuania (2023); Non-Player Character at Galeria Kollektiva, Kassel, Germany (2022); Digging History at INDUSTRA, Brno, Czech Republic (2021); Eat The Rich at Galerie Sono, Paris, France (2021); It's Always Day One at Office Impart, Berlin, Germany (2021); Bit Rot at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth, United Kingdom (2020); The Big Four, duo show with Rosa-Maria Nuutinen at Harlesden High Street, London, United Kingdom (2019); Wellness, Ltd., duo show with Erin Mitchell at Galerie Manque, New York, USA (2019); State of Affairs at Salon 75, Copenhagen, Denmark (2019) and CACOTOPIA 02 at Annka Kultys Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2018).
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Bicknell-Knight has spoken on panel discussions and given artist talks at Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania (2022); Mezanin, Bucharest, Romania (2021); panke.gallery, Berlin, Germany (2021); Contemporary Calgary, Canada (2020); Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2019); University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2019); Camberwell College of Arts, London, United Kingdom (2019) and Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom (2018).
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His work is held in numerous private collections in London (UK), Paris (FR), The Netherlands (NL), Berlin (DE), Copenhagen (DK), Stockholm (SE), Helsinki (FI), New York City (USA), Seattle (USA), Italy (IT), Montreal (CA), Hong Kong (HK) and others.
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​​If you'd like to come by for a studio visit at Bob Bicknell-Knight's studio (pictured), located at ARS Kunstilinnak in Tallinn, Estonia, email bobbicknellknight@gmail.com
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The start of Bicknell-Knight's current focus, exploring the mechanics of video games to speak about wider ideas surrounding time, decay and control, was in early 2022 when he underwent a residency in Vilnius, Lithuania, at SODAS 2123 Artist in Residence. Since 2016 he has been making work with and about video games, but the residency in 2022 marked a shift, where he decided to devote the majority of his practice to these ideas. During his one month stay he spent time learning to use the game development software Unity to understand how the games we play are created, producing a playable experience towards the end of the residency.
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The Forest, 2022
Video game, Microsoft controller, Razer gaming laptop, 60 inch TV, tree stumps
Dimensions variable
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Later in 2022 he had a solo exhibition in Kassel, Germany, at Galeria Kollektiva, titled Non-Player Character, which then travelled to KlaipÄ—da, Lithuania, at KlaipÄ—da Exhibition Hall in 2023. The exhibition looked at the many facets of non-player characters (NPCs) in video games, from their looping lives to the repetitive dialogue that they bark at the player character, as a metaphor for the boundaries of human action within an increasingly algorithmic, surveilled existence. For the exhibition Bicknell-Knight produced a series of hybrid paintings, printed and partially painted onto canvases, in 3D printed frames, depicting the landscapes of different game worlds and texts repeatedly spoken by NPCs. Also included was a CGI film composed of different NPCs falling into a white space, breaking apart and becoming a homogenized whole; an interactive NPC graveyard where audiences could explore a game space filled with NPC graves and a series of sculptures featuring stacked crates with 3D printed objects from different games.
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Non-Player Character, 2022
4K video with sound, 3D printed marble PLA plastic, USB drive, USB male to female cable
9 min 38 sec
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​In 2023 Bicknell-Knight had two solo exhibitions in London, UK and Berlin, Germany, Insert Coin and Sunday School, looking at gambling mechanics being inserted into video games as a gateway to talking about how our collective lives are becoming increasingly gamified. Insert Coin at Cable Depot, London, included an interactive element, a spinnable painting that enabled audiences to win small sculptures as a reward for visiting the exhibition, as well as a large-scale sculpture of a loot box, resembling a robotic tick, from the video game Apex Legends, suspended from the ceiling in the gallery space.
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Loot Tick, 2023
3D printed PLA plastic, glue, polypropylene webbing, thread, carabiners
Dimensions variable
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Sunday School at Number 1 Main Road, Berlin, took these ideas further, where he developed his own loot box from a fictional video game. A loot box is a virtual item in video games that players can purchase or earn, containing random in-game items, often cosmetic or functional, contributing an element of chance to the player's acquisition. Within the show the loot box was anthropomorphized and called Wally, appearing throughout the exhibition as child-sized sculptures in various poses and the focus of a CGI video, speaking about their experiences of being a loot box, continually being derided by players.
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Time Out (Bitter), 2023
3D printed PLA plastic, acrylic spray paint, steel bolts
41 x 99.3 x 54.4 cm
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In 2024 Bicknell-Knight opened a duo show at The Cut in Halesworth, UK, called Logging Off, that explored the software used to make video games as a device for beginning a dialogue around late capitalism and anxieties surrounding the pre-apocalypse, including sculptures of 3D models used in games and hybrid paintings of 3D models of animals within fabricated game spaces.
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Logging Off, 2024
Installation view
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Later in the year he curated Digital Portraiture: Empathy In Virtual Worlds at {Senne} in Brussels, Belgium, exploring digital portraiture and empathy within virtual worlds, featuring artists who use a variety of different techniques to seek out emotional and empathetic moments within digital spaces, both from AI combatants and real world people.
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Digital Portraiture: Empathy In Virtual Worlds, 2024
Installation view
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Much of the first half of 2024 was spent planning a solo exhibition, Asset Flip, at SEAGER, London, UK, which included new work accompanied by some earlier pieces included in Logging Off. The exhibition was the culmination of a four part exhibition series, titled Matchmaking, that he organised for the gallery, working with artists who are inspired by and work within video game worlds, exploring a range of diverse ideas from the architecture of game spaces to violence, war and politics in the digital realm. The shows included paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, films, playable experiences and in-game performances.
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Installation view
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Bicknell-Knight is currently living and working in Tallinn, Estonia, after moving there to undergo a two year Masters in Contemporary Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA). During this time he is continuing to create artworks exploring the human condition intertwined with video game worlds.
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In late 2024 he co-created An Orchard, a short, free video game experience that he made with Rosa-Maria Nuutinen as part of a week long intensive video game course at EKA.
For regular updates on his practice, you can follow him on Instagram here.
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