Niko Abramidis &NE, Cryptic Machine Prototype CB, 2024

2024

Medium

Steel, spray paint, LCD screen, LEDs and video

Dimensions

110 × 80 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-155889

In the “Cryptic Machine Prototypes” series by Niko Abramidis &NE, languages and technologies from different times seem to meet and form an archaeology of the future. The artist lasers sharp-edged cut-outs into the raw steel surfaces, which are distorted in perspective or even appear to have been fractured out. Colored light penetrates through their openings, as well as fragments of text and screens that hint at possible functions as automatons, but whose modes of operation are obscured. The integrated videos play with the aesthetics of image films with romanticized shots of nature that are reminiscent of greenwashing campaigns by large companies. These are repeatedly interrupted by program sequences with source texts in which the protagonists from Niko Abramidis &NE’s graphic cosmos &NE can be recognized from other works. However, they do not appear here as classically drawn, but as images made up of punctuation marks in so-called ASCII art. This digital sign language served as the basis for today's emojis. The artist thus illustrates how new (digital) forms of language are constantly overlapping, building on each other and leading to new communication systems and visual languages. In these works, Niko Abramidis &NE draws attention to the simplicity and two-dimensionality of an aesthetic that is outdated from today's perspective. Instead of Greek symbols, which usually appeared in earlier works in this series and referred to different time horizons and ancient cultures, short text messages such as “Cover Blow”, “Do the Trick” or “Strong Belief” now appear on the steel surface. They are reminiscent of catchy advertising slogans and thus once again provide open-ended references to the fictitious or former functions of these machines.