Michael Craig-Martin's Transience exhibition traces the evolution of electronic product design
In his first solo show in 26 years, artist Michael Craig-Martin presents graphic depictions of three decades of electronic goods at London's Serpentine Gallery (+ slideshow).
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_9.jpg)
The Transience exhibition brings together works created by the 74-year-old artist over the past 30 years, and documents the development of technology from the light bulb and battery to the Macbook.
Now-defunct items such the cassette tape and the black-and-white television are shown alongside images of more recent technology such as an X-Box controller and Apple's iPhone.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_17.jpg)
Each of the objects is portrayed through minimal line drawings, filled with bright contrasting colours. An incandescent light bulb is shown in red, green and blue, on a pink background, while a side view of a wireless computer mouse is depicted in pastel green and pink.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_12.jpg)
"When I started drawing these ordinary, everyday objects in the 1970s, I thought they were pretty stable in the world," said Craig-Martin. "I assumed they would not change over time."
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_14.jpg)
"I realise now that the things I was drawing were objects that had been designed or invented in the period dominated by the principle of form follows function... today this is much less true," he added.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_0.jpg)
Two of the Serpentine's galleries have been painted green and pink, to echo the colours of Craig-Martin's work, and another room is covered in an overlapping wallpaper design created for the exhibition.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_10.jpg)
A sculpture featuring an oversized pink outline of a light bulb has also been designed for the Serpentine, and is on display outside the gallery.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_8.jpg)
"One of the things that struck us was the transformation from the analogue age to the digital age, which of course I've recorded, because I have kept drawing the things around me," said the artist.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_4.jpg)
"While in the pre-technological age I occasionally represented a black-and-white portable television or a tape cassette, with the recent work there is a sudden acceleration and there are 15 or 20 paintings of technological objects – laptops, iPhones, memory sticks, and so on," he added.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_28.jpg)
"Craig-Martin's acute observations present an extraordinary picture of recent developments in the production, processes, functions and form of the objects that populate our world," said gallery director and co-director Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich-Obrist.
"His work reveals a search for the ultimate expression of contemporaneity in a way that we all experience – through the items we use every day," they added.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_22.jpg)
Dezeen has filmed a series of interviews with Peyton-Jones about the gallery's annual architectural pavilion commission, to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
![Transience by Michael Craig-Martin at the Serpentine Gallery](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/12/Transience_Michael-Craig-Martin_Serpentine_dezeen_936_21.jpg)
The Transience exhibition opened on 25 November 2015 and continues until 14 February 2016 at the Serpentine Gallery in London's Kensington Gardens.