The following conversation took place in New York on May 19^th 2018 with loose ends recently tied. The original transcript was much longer. We nerded over mathematics, technology and gay politics, scrambling about on fun tangents. One could define these tangents as frivolous and furthermore position «frivolous» as having a particular anglo gay tone. This tone carries into the varying roles Charles takes as an artist. One role he recently took was creating the exhibition design for the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective Among Friends, at MoMA New York. His practice refuses a stable single categorization drawing on community and collaboration while sitting on the periphery of portraiture and media. Atlas’ position is outside of and in conversation with experimentation and improvisation, the live event and immersive environment. The freedom he takes radiates otherness and he has continuously placed himself at the forefront of new technologies, multi-screen installations, and live video mixing. 

Rigged to a free-standing display system, close but not touching the wall nor grounded, eight screens stand on their side, upright, sealed in a grid. Together their 8, 16:9 aspect ratios form a 5:4 aspect ratio. The unknown aspect a provocation to the now. The now, a provocation unto itself. On either side a speaker, by the entrance/exit door a subwoofer faces the screens, the body. The image holds the body. The space between simulation and failure holds the image. The words: «an image is a hustler » resonate. Shahryar Nashat’s An Image is an Orphan is a newly commissioned 18’22” HD video with sound, the core piece within Nashat’s solo exhibition The Cold Horizontals at Kunsthalle Basel. Below are notes on the content of the video and its mediation.