Akeroyd Collection

Works

Ed Atkins, Untitled , 2018

In this hyper-realistic digitally rendered video, sandwiches are assembled in sequence. Each component, from the first slice of bread to the last, is dropped dramatically from a height, before bouncing and settling into place in slow motion. Mayonnaise, then ham, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and the final slice on top. This perfect yet uncanny choreography reads like an exaggerated, perverse take on ‘food-porn’ obsessed advertising campaigns. These sequences repeat, the sound gradually incorporates saws and machinery, echos from empty environments, pianos breaking, smashes, crashes and mechanical crescendos like jet engines alongside eerie drones, bells, and hard rummaging noises. Another piece of bread lands, some rubber baby dolls fall onto it, some brown slop, a blanket, denim jeans, some businessmen in suits, and more slop. Ketchup, then a union jack, all encased in the final layer of bread that falls to the top of the pile to the sound of a tolling bell. Next butter, books, grass. Miscellaneous furniture, a crucifix. A peeled-off human face with ketchup, skulls and bones with mustard and rubber mannequins in a brioche bun. Tomatoes, cucumber, a wooden door, and some babies in nappies. Each time a new sandwich is assembled from this grotesque menu, it is stretched apart vertically to reveal the ingredients in the manner of an exploded diagram. Suspended momentarily, a bell chimes like an order number arriving at the pass and it collapses again to its final form.

MediumHD video with stereo sound
Duration5 minutes 30 seconds
Editionof 8