Brian Hewitt’s lifetime is measured in numbers. Some numbers are still and solid, some are constantly, rhythmically increasing, some numbers wait, trembling, for your attention to drop and then rush into higher digits. It is Hewitt’s first solo exhibition, featuring his work from the last year’s degree show at Edinburgh College of Art.

The central piece of the show, reckoning v0.4, uses the predicted date of the artist’s death as a starting point of the meticulous calculation, taking place in real-time and aiming towards the supposed date in the future. As I look inside the white cube structure inside another white cube—the Corn Exchange Gallery—I discover a darkened space full of flittering numbers representing various personal and universal facts, from the number of neurons that were activated in the artist’s body since birth, to the number of species that have become extinct. The complexity of the calculations is hidden by the stylistic neatness of the projection making it both a threatening and an elegant piece, a representation of our contemporary demons – statistics, time, anonymity.

Unfortunately, reckoning v0.4 loses a lot of its strength due to poor presentation: the cube is crowded by the three projectors making it impossible to walk inside and offering a side view into the artist’s numerical shrine rather than a surrounding, large-scale experience that would complement the monumental concepts it deals with. At the same time the white cube takes up a lot of scarce gallery space, making the second piece in the corner look insignificant, as if thrown in at the last minute. To add to this impression, it is not even mentioned in the text accompanying the exhibition.

Yet this intricate structure of wires, waxy-looking forms and lights programmed to spell out the words like “fear”, “hope” and “infinite” in binary code could be an exhibition in itself. Brian Hewitt’s work is acutely personal, without being sensationalist and complex without being inaccessible. Yet the compromise on the presentation—perhaps unavoidable in the gallery situation—makes this show somehow leave you wanting more.