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Born in 1982, Ed Atkins lives and works in London. The artist is well known for his immersive environments and association of high definition digital images and syncopated sound montages. A
literature connoisseur, he writes his own scenarios, creating a world of digital illusions and fantasy sometimes verging on the grotesque. _Happy Birthday!!! _is a computer-generated
animation in black and white. More disturbing than its title suggests, it accords a central role to death. One also detects furtive allusions to Bruce Nauman's _Self-Portrait as a
Fountain_(1996), _Alice in Wonderland_ and a drawing by writer Pierre Klossowski for his book _L'Adolescent immortel_ (1994). The intermittently appearing numbers are like mysterious
codes: impossible to say if they refer to dates, quantities or durations. Indirectly they suggest the binary code figures 1 and 0 which, like words in literature, enable the creation of
entirely imaginary worlds. This work confronts the effects of the omnipresence of the digital on our lives and memories: for example, in the long run those automatic birthday reminders
entrusted to our mobile phones can only lead to disruptions. _Ed Atkin’s work was featured in “Co-workers”, an exhibition of post-Internet art shown at the museum in 2015_. CURATOR : Anne
Dressen