AUT - SWAMP activist takes residency at AUT CoLab
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SWAMP activist takes residency at AUT CoLab
21 Jul 2009
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Matt Kenyon in 'Consumer' |
It looks like a dimple but the indent in Matt Kenyon’s left cheek is actually a hole through which he threads a cable connecting a video camera in his mouth to a barcode scanner. The digital artist then walks supermarket aisles, mouth wide open, ‘consuming’ barcodes and sending the data to a Nielsen Homescan scanner.
Currently in Auckland as a resident at AUT University’s CoLab Creative Technology Centre, Kenyon is a mixed media artist who as half of the collective known as SWAMP (Studies of Work, Atmospheres and Mass Production) stages witty and satirical interventions to critique global corporations, consumerism, mass production and political domination.
As part of his residency he will speak at ‘Against Freedom’ a CoLab panel discussion exploring notions of social activism, new technologies and the modern surveillance state.
Originally a painter (his last work in the medium was a series of girls who resemble Britney Spears) Kenyon is an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University, USA where he teaches physical computing, video and 3D animation. The other half of SWAMP, Doug Easterly, is currently based at Victoria University in Wellington teaching programming and multimedia.
An exhibition of SWAMP’s work is running at CoLab’s partner MIC Toi Rerehiko until August 22. Fire Sale comprises eight works including ‘Notepad’ featuring what looks like an every day yellow legal pad of paper. However every line is constructed of micro-printed text containing personal details of Iraqi civilian casualties. Back in the US editions of the notebad have been covertly shipped into the United States Congress offices where they act as Trojan horses – slipping the unwanted and unacknowledged civilian body count into official government archives.
In ‘Coke Is It’ a robot seeks out Coca Cola and sprays itself with the drink until it eventually erodes and self-destructs. Designed to search and consume until it kills itself, the robot exposes the marketing hypocrisy of linking the consumption of toxins with an elevated self-worth.
ENDS
For images or more information please contact: Andrea Malcolm 021-924-314 or Aimee Wilkins 021-243-0255
Who: Matt Kenyon
What: ‘Against Freedom’ CoLab panel discussion
Where: Galatos
When: Tuesday, July 28th, 6pm
What: Firesale
Where: MIC Toi Rerehiko, Level 1, 321 Karangahape Road
When: Now until 22 August