Matt Kenyon

S.W.A.M.P. (Studies of Work Atmospheres and Mass Production) focuses on critical themes addressing the effects of global corporate operations, mass media and communication, military- industrial complexes, and general meditations on the liminal area between life and artificial life. SWAMP has been making work in this vein since 1999 using a wide range of media, including custom software, electronics, mechanical devices, and oftentimes working with living organisms.

Matt Kenyon is a new media artist and designer. Kenyon’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, MOCAD Detroit, Science Gallery Dublin, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and the International Print Center.

He is a TED Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and his work has been awarded the FILE Prix Lux. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, and Gizmodo, and has also appeared in edited volumes such as A Touch of Code (Gestalten Press) and Adversarial Design (MIT Press). He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University at Buffalo, and part of PLATFORM, UB’s socially engaged design studio.

ARTWORKS

Notepad (2007-present) / Alternative Rule (2020-present) / Logrule (2022-present)
Installations

Notepad’ (2007-present) The Notepad is an act of protest and commemoration disguised as a stack of ordinary yellow legal pads. When the pages are magnified, each ruled line is revealed to be microprinted text enumerating the details of each Iraqi civilian death on record. A printed edition of one hundred notepads was covertly distributed to US representatives and senators. As a form of Trojan Horse, the effort injected transgressive data into the halls of power and put the pages into circulation around Capitol Hill – memorializing the names of Iraqi civilians in official archives to ensure some measure of historical recognition.

‘Alternative Rule’ (2020-present) Though it might look like the paper you use to learn penmanship, in Alternative Rule, the lines on the paper are made up of micro-printed names and dates of children who have been victims of gun violence in America since the Columbine High School shooting. People of all ages are invited to take a sheet of paper and write a letter to members of government to advocate for gun control in America. Alternative Rule is a memorial and a protest tool, created for the activists of the next generation, many of whom are already organizing in their own schools and on the national level.

‘Logrule’ (2022-present) In a moment when people seem to want to forget the pandemic and move on with their daily lives, Log Rule offers a circulating memorial to the scale of our losses. This paper looks like the kind used to plot exponentially increasing data–like the increase in cases of a rapidly spreading disease. In Log Rule, the names, dates, and locations of those who have died are preserved in the microprinted text of the lines themselves. I offer sheets of the paper in hopes that those who have suffered and those who continue to grieve for loved ones are not forgotten.

Links to Artworks
https://www.swamp.nu/projects/notepad
https://www.swamp.nu/projects/alternative-rule
https://www.swamp.nu/logrule

Website
https://www.swamp.nu/