Bob Bicknell-Knight (b. Suffolk, UK) is a London based artist, curator and writer, working in several mediums including installation, sculpture, video, and digital media. His work is influenced by surveillance capitalism and responds to the hyper consumerism of the internet. Utopia, dystopia, automation, surveillance and digitization of the self are some of the themes that arise through his critical examination of contemporary technologies.
Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, a predominantly online platform for contemporary art, exhibiting over 800 artists since its creation in May 2016.
Selected solo and duo exhibitions include Pickers at Industra, Brno (2021), Bit Rot at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth (2020), The Big Four, duo show with Rosa-Maria Nuutinen at Harlesden High Street, London (2019), Wellness, Ltd., duo show with Erin Mitchell at Galerie Manque, New York (2019), State of Affairs at Salon 75, Copenhagen (2019), CACOTOPIA 02 at Annka Kultys Gallery, London (2018) and Sunrise Prelude at Dollspace, London (2017).
Bicknell-Knight has spoken on panel discussions and given artist talks at Contemporary Calgary, Canada (2020), Tate Modern, London (2019), University of Cambridge, Cambridge (2019), Camberwell College of Arts, London (2019) and Goldsmiths, University of London, London (2018).
There are already 35 server farms on Mars. It is the perfect temperature, 2017, 3’08”
There are already 35 server farms on Mars. It is the perfect temperature is a looping film that explores ideas of digital escapism in the post-truth era. The piece utilises found footage taken from YouTube, a video sharing platform, accompanied by a voice actor commissioned through Fiverr, an online marketplace commonly used by corporations for adverts, reading a speculative script considering how our lives are becomingly increasingly digitalised. Groups are are now seen as a commodity, a new form of currency akin to Bitcoin or Litecoin, enabling the creation of a safety net around our physical bodies that thrives on simulating fear surrounded by fake news, letting our digital selves run wild and free with the help of VR and future technologies.