DUBAI.- Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, Collishaw formed part of the legendary movement of Young British Artists (YBA’s). He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988 as well as the famous Sensation show of 1997.
Throughout his 30-yearcareer, Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, the artist creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage us to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology, and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each work there is a deep exploration of how we perceive and are influenced by the world today through images, and modern technology. Questions regarding behavioral manipulation, programming, temporal reality all linger in the viewing experience.
“Machine zone” is a term describing the state gamblers enter when they are fully immersed in a game and the outside world recedes. The term is used to describe the addictive phenomenon caused by variable rewards. Players, not knowing what card is coming next or when they will be rewarded, are compelled to keep returning to the table. This psychological insight is used by software designers, who incorporate the concept into the mechanics of social media platforms. They introduced functions such as comments, likes and shares to encourage users to return to a platform repeatedly (often compulsively) to monitor their social media feeds. The Machine Zone refers to our increasing dependence on the ever more mechanized, technology-driven world.
The Machine Zone (2019)–for which the exhibition is named –is an installation of robotic birds that perform a repetitive algorithm of actions. The work refers to the 1950s experiments of the American psychologist Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner, in which he analyzed the behavior of small animals driven by a random reward system. Skinner's basic methodology was to give his subjects a signal to encourage them to perform actions in exchange for a reward. Skinner's conclusion, that our behavior is ‘a response to circumstances and environmental influences’, underlies much of the research on the algorithms that govern our social networking interactions today. Taking advantage of the vulnerability of the human psyche, algorithms shape our habits and create unconscious addictions.
The series of paintings called The Operant Conditioning Chamber (2022) is based on photographs of Skinner's early experiments. The birds shown there, confined in cages to study their behavior, became unwitting agents in collecting data that could then be used for manipulation and financial profit.
The Centrifugal Soul (2016), a large-scale zoetrope, was created in collaboration with renowned contemporary evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. A zoetrope –an elegant structure invented during the Victorian era, references to which invariably appear in Collishaw’s works. In the center of the zoetrope is a platform adorned with models of flowers and birds. Rotating at 60 rpm, the platform is illuminated with flashes of strobe light every second, creating the illusion of movement as the birds hover over the opening buds and perform mating dances with their bright plumage. Birds are programmed by nature to perform these courtship rituals to breed and maintain the species. Technology companies have developed ways to capitalize on this natural instinct, encouraging us through social media and smartphones to constantly create and project an idealized version of ourselves, presenting ourselves to the outside world as more successful and desirable.
The Nerve Rack (2019) was originally created specifically for the former Ushaw Seminary in County Durham as a site-specific installation. A life-size mechanical figure of an eagle, it was installed in the chapel of St. Cuthbert's Church opposite one of County Durham's treasures, a lectern topped with a bronze sculpture of an eagle designed by the 19th century architect Augustus Pugin. The majestic images embodied symbols of opposing spiritual beliefs in 16th century England. Facing each other, they represented the unity and, at the same time, the irreconcilable differences between the Catholic and Protestant movements of the era. Contrasting the minimalism of the machine with the elegance of the bronze sculpture, the artist reflects on the power of suggestion and the ways of distorting information through visual images.
Expiration Painting (2016) is a series of paintings in Plexiglas frames that are reproductions of works by Old Masters, the subjects of which touch upon the transience of human life and its finitude. Collishaw actualizes this "eternal" theme through a modern presentation of classical images. The reproductions remain incomplete and resemble a sheet of paper with an image not fully printed out because the printer ran out of ink, forcing the viewer to think about the brevity of the moment even in the era of high-speed technology.
“To find out what it is that we are creating when we’re making this simulacrum of the world, and how much that is divorcing us from the world or how much it’s making us understand the world. It’s kind of what we are as human beings that interests me. And for that I can fall back on so many different fields of interest, from that kind of evolutionary biology which I’m very interested in, to the history of art, and also evolving technologies”. Mat Collishaw
Mat Collishaw’s works have been exhibited in numerous museums and public collections globally, including: Tate, London, UK; Somerset House, London, UK; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy; Pino Pascali Museum Foundation, Bari, Italy; Bass Museum of Art, Florida, USA; Freud Museum, London, UK; Galeria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris, France; The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; Museo di Roma, Rome, Italy; MNAC, Barcelona, Spain; Arter Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey; British Council Collection, London, UK; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Torino, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, USA; Museum of Old and New Art, New South Wales, Australia; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Olbricht Collection, Berlin, Germany.
