SWAMP activist takes residency at AUT CoLab

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 the 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 CENTER, 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 be the keynote speaker at a CoLab PANEL DISCUSSION where scholars and artists will explore notions of social activism, new technologies and the modern surveillance state.

He is also working on a research project building a machine which puffs out clouds, the shape and size of which are determined by data on the US housing bubble pulled from the internet. In a companion piece he plans to work with a locksmith to create human profiles in keys to explore the ideas of security, ownership, community and symbols

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 work is running at CoLab’s partner MIC Toi Rerehiko until August 22. Called Fire Sale, it features eight works including ‘Coke Is It’ where a robot seeks out Coca Cola and proceeds to spray it over itself until it eventually erodes and self-destructs. Designed to search and consume until it kills itself, the robot embodies a form of modern-day lifestyle and exposes a hypocrisy in marketing that tries to link an elevated self-worth to consumption of toxins.  In 'Puddle', what looks like a puddle of oil coalesces and forms the brand names of sports utility vehicles.

or images or more information please contact: Andrea Malcolm 021-924-314 or Aimee Wilkins 021-243-0255

Who: Matt Kenyon
What: CoLab PANEL DISCUSSION, AUT CoLab
Where: GALATOS
When: TUESDAY, JULY 28TH, 6PM