"HOW MANY OF US, when we speak with our parents, feel like stock characters, as though we were simulations of ourselves? In The Worm, 2021, the centerpiece of “Get Life/Love’s Work,” his recent show at the New Museum in New York, the English artist Ed Atkins presents a telephone call with his mother in this very manner. In the roughly thirteen-minute animation, his mum is heard but not seen, while Atkins is rendered, by way of performance-capture technology, as a digital avatar who listens attentively, mumbling in agreement, sympathy, or surprise, asking a question only when her narrative falters."