Join us for a talk by New Media artist Matt Kenyon, titled “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Accumulation and Waste.”
Over the past eighteen years, Matt Kenyon's SWAMP (Studies of Work Atmosphere and Mass Production) art practice has created a body of work that examines various socio-political phenomena. The defining paradigm shift of the last hundred years can be seen as a movement from defining individuals as citizens, to seeing corporations as citizens.
Partnerships between psychology and industry have also lead to a demotion of individual citizens to the role of consumer. Advances in our understanding of how our individual minds work (via neuroscience) have accelerated and expanded upon this post-human shift. As corporations shift from branding products to branding consumer’s experiences, notions of ownership, authenticity and disobedience become more important than ever before.
This talk will raise the question: What will tomorrow’s protest look like?
This Artist Talk is presented as part of the School of Art + Design Visitors Series in partnership with the Critical Technology Studies Lab, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It is free and open to the public.
