Artist: Mathew Kneebone
Exhibition title: Curse of The Walking Techbane
Venue: Rib, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Date: May 4 – June 29, 2018
Photography: Jeroen Laven / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Rib, Rotterdam
Note: Full press release can be found here
If our understanding of complex technology as end-users is inadequate then how do we re-spond to its malfunction? When faced with a meandering cell-phone signal we might desper-ately wave our phone in the air to improve reception. We might blame a rainy day for unstable Wi-Fi, or perhaps a passerby for blocking its invisible path. The language we use to describe these occurrences suddenly imbues machines with a temperamental personality: drained bat-teries will suddenly “die”, an erratic phone becomes “possessed”, and a touch screen responds crazily. How might an engineer respond to malfunction by comparison? In his book Overcom-plicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension (2016), complexity scientist Samuel Arbes-man talks about how technical systems such as infrastructure and computers have reached such a point of complexity that no single individual, either engineer or end-user, can claim full understanding. Supplanting the notion of the engineer as contemporary magician Arbesman says that the projection of meaning onto malfunction is “no longer an attitude reserved for laypeople, it occurs even among the developers of technology themselves.” He continues with an anecdote told by engineer Lee Felsenstein in which an engineering manager had to leave the room whenever a piece of software was being demonstrated; his presence alone seemingly caused things to malfunction. None of the engineers could find a logical solution to the prob-lem and so instead resigned it to the realm of metaphysics.
For Curse of The Walking Techbane at Rib, Mathew Kneebone explores the metaphysical mean-ings attributed to malfunction and technical complexity. Works on show link human energy fields, magnetism, and auras with machines through video loops of homopolar motors, trou-bleshooting monologues, electro-photograms, 19th-century aura viewing fluids, dysfunctional prototypes, and musical lights.
With voice work performed by Abe Bernstein, Lisa Sniderman, Brian Vouglas, and Susannah Wood.
Mathew Kneebone (1982) lives and works in San Francisco, California. He graduated from the Werkplaats Typografie in 2014 and in the same year was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie, the Netherlands. He explores the history of electrical innovation and the cultural mechanisms that end-users adopt to cope with its change. His research correlates technical-complexity, malfunction, and user-anxieties with mythology, superstition, and science fiction. This manifests through writing and drawing which informs the creation of his electronic installations and performances. He has given talks and workshops at the AA School, London UK (2011); Central Saint Martins, London UK (2016); Kunstverein, Amsterdam NL (2015); Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam NL (2015); and has re-cently shown work at De Fabriek, Eindhoven, NL (2017); Museum Dr. Guislain, BE (2017); Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, CH (2016); Typojanchi Biennial, Seoul, KR (2015–2016). His writing has been published in The Serving Library, OASE Journal for Architecture, and Luca School of Art amongst others.
Mathew Kneebone, Stills from Personal Magnetism #2 & #4 (2018), HD video loop, colour, silent
Exhibition view: Mathew Kneebone, Curse of The Walking Techbane at Rib (2018)
Mathew Kneebone, Personal Magnetism #2 & #4 (2018), HD video loop, colour, silent
Mathew Kneebone, Still from Personal Magnetism #1 (2018), HD video loop, colour, silent
Mathew Kneebone, Singing Light #7 (2018), Broken glass, light, sound, high-voltage electricity, nichrome, electronic components, metal, resin, lamp base, 63 x 25 x 25 cm
Mathew Kneebone, Singing Light #7 (2018), Broken glass, light, sound, high-voltage electricity, nichrome, electronic components, metal, resin, lamp base, 63 x 25 x 25 cm
Exhibition view: Mathew Kneebone, Curse of The Walking Techbane at Rib (2018)
Mathew Kneebone, Seeing Clearly (2018), UV resistant resin, 99% pinacyanol bromide, methanol, metal, light, 50 x 150 x 3 cm
Mathew Kneebone, A Small Black Cloud Looking Substance (2018), High-voltage electricity on black and white silver gelatin, 50.8 x 40.6 cm
Detail view: Mathew Kneebone, A Small Black Cloud Looking Substance: Opaque (2018), High-voltage electricity on black and white silver gelatin, 50.8 x 40.6 cm
Detail view: Mathew Kneebone, A Small Black Cloud Looking Substance: Transparent (2018), High-voltage electricity on black and white silver gelatin, 50.8 x 40.6 cm
Mathew Kneebone, Still from Personal Magnetism #3 (2018), HD video loop, colour, silent
Detail view: Mathew Kneebone, Curse of The Walking Techbane at Rib (2018)
Mathew Kneebone, Still from Personal Magnetism #3 (2018), HD video loop, colour, silent
Exhibition view: Mathew Kneebone, Curse of The Walking Techbane at Rib (2018)