Asset Flip

SEAGER presents Asset Flip, a solo exhibition by artist and curator Bob Bicknell-Knight, exploring how artists make work with and about video games.

Investigating the tools used to create video games as a vehicle for speaking about hyper-capitalism and a general feeling of malaise towards the contemporary moment, Asset Flip reflects upon the impending climate crisis and 24/7 hypercapitalism through the lens of prefabricated assets used in video game development.

Within video games, an asset is any resource that is used in the development of a video game, from 3D models to sound effects and pieces of code. An asset flip is a type of shovel-ware (a term for low budget, poor quality video games, released purely for monetary gain) in which a video game developer purchases pre-made assets and uses them to create numerous permutations of generic games to sell at low prices. These games, albeit unpopular, are still regularly bought by unsuspecting buyers, and have been accused of flooding video game markets. Although asset flips are condemned by the industry, the use of pre-made assets, however, is becoming increasingly commonplace in video game development. In the exhibition at SEAGER pre-made assets, appropriated from asset stores, are explored through sculptures, paintings and films, commenting on our 24/7 working lives and the acceleration of global production processes.