‘Downonly’ is the new interactive installation by Nikita Diakur, in which the artist continues his exploration of the loss of control, advocating the ugly and unpredictable. The fall, as the unifying element of this generative project, on-chain and which understands animation as an interactive process, allows for the generation of a play space in which the artist entrusts his own creative process to the public.
With the artist’s usual DIY aesthetic, a computer is pushed towards the edge of a staircase, indicating an immovable directionality, the end of a process, which can be slowed down or accelerated by the participants through their online interaction. Through a reverse bidding system, participation is invited for the acquisition of unique works that function as an archive of what is disputed throughout the process of interaction with the work. In this way, the fall, functioning as the gravitational axis of the project, manages to contain the usual tensions of digital environments, generating a multiple narrative that does not privilege any plane or perspective, but abstracts and shows the different agencies and dynamics that are simultaneously involved in the functioning of the work.
The narrative and spatial tension coexists in turn with the indeterminacy derived from working with what the artist himself calls ‘interactive animation’, in which not only the agential framework of the computer is recognized, but also that of the object itself. Simulation, as a generator of conditions of possibility, allows a processual exploration not centered on the final object, but on the development of its environment. The indeterminacy is contained in the resulting object itself, a purely digital file that always appeals to the beyond of what is contained by itself, that can never fully unfold as its generative condition, always simulated.
The function of the fall not only determines a mechanical and temporary end to the installation itself, but it is the gear and guiding thread of Nikita Diakur’s artistic practice. In works such as ‘Ugly’ (2017), ‘Fest’ (2018) or ‘backflip’ (2022), the narrative function gradually evolves towards fragmentation and unpredictability, while carrying both emotional and symbolic weight for the artist. Falling, in ‘Downonly’, results in ‘a finite and fragmented chain of falls, shaped by the actions of the participants rather than by a single creator or computer. It is about accepting the fall as a journey and a destination, a process open to its organic outcome.’
Downonly is a time-limited interactive work combining installation, an interactive game and a series of digital works. During the participatory phase, audiences bid on simulations through the project’s website. Their decisions affected the duration of the work: the computer housing the participation software was positioned at the top of a staircase and ultimately fell, bringing the process to an end.
Following the interactive phase, the installation documented the final fall of the computer. A documentary featuring Nikita Diakur and his team explores the production process and the project’s approach to simulation, participation and loss of control.
Discover more about the project at downonly.xyz