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Artist: Alex Mackin Dolan

Closing reception: Tuesday 20 December, 6pm-8pm David Lewis presents Alex Mackin Dolan’s Really New God. The exhibition, which features custom built video game machines, takes its name from the acronym RNG, which refers to Random Number Generator, an algorithmic component of video games and computer programs which determines random outcomes. In the machine gambling industry RNG is colloquially referred to by many as Really New God.

This is the gallery’s third solo show with the artist. The custom built machines in this exhibition made from wood and simple computer parts fall into the category of “Medal Games”, a subset of Amusement Machines that involve an exchange of real money for Tokens, which can be won, but not able to exchange back to money and only ever used to play more. These games are more popular in Japan but have their American equivalents like Coin Pushers. Medal games often simulate a no stakes for fun version of Machine Gambling. Gambling Machines are designed to bleed a user's funds out over the longest possible time frame. They maximize addiction while simultaneously extracting total profit, and result in the complete extinction of a user's funds. This is the core metaphor of addictive media which now saturate our world. Many techniques used in app user retention were perfected on the casino floor. Value used to be extracted out of your productive power, your physical labor. Now it is extracted out of your consumptive power and your attention.

Alex Mackin Dolan (b. 1990, Colorado) lives and works in New York. His work has been exhibited internationally and nationally, including: Serpentine Gallery, London; Swiss Institute, New York; 89Plus curated by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist, LUMA Westbau, Zurich; Park Avenue Armory, New York; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Oregon; Plymouth Rock, Zurich; Bedstuy Love Affair, New York; Karma International, Zurich; MACO, Oaxaca, Mexico, among others. Dolan was featured in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present.