Niko Abramidis &NE, Cryptic Machine Prototype N1, 2020

2020

Medium

Steel, plexiglass, LED tubes, LCD screen and video loop (01:41 min)

Dimensions

110 × 82 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156007

As if from some kind of strategic corporate management plan, large, machine-like works from Niko Abramidis &NE's series of Cryptic Machine Prototypes, initiated in 2018, hang on the walls. The raw steel surfaces, from the openings of which colored light emerges, as well as symbols, screens and pinpads, indicate possible functions as machines or control elements, the functionality of which has disappeared or at least is no longer understandable. The integrated videos play with the aesthetics of image films from banks and companies that have long gone insolvent. The images of nature, broken by fading in a code, are reminiscent of greenwashing campaigns by large companies. In the Cryptic Machine Prototypes, symbols and technologies from different times seem to collide, creating an archeology of the future that can no longer be deciphered. With an ironic eye, Niko Abramidis &NE designs prototypes of machines from other times and places them in the present with an archaeological patina. With these works, the artist distorts comprehensible time horizons and thus refers to the economic processes of our time that have become impenetrable due to their complexity. The heavily rusted surface of Cryptic Machine Prototype N1 (2020) suggests that time has been inscribed here in wavy patterns over a long period of time. The machine, possibly an ATM from the future, has welds that may indicate previous repairs or some kind of probe. Above a screen showing a video with cloud formations, which is repeatedly interrupted by fade-ins of a source code, the designation N€ is engraved, which can be read as the logo of a fictional company or as the artist's monogram.