Matthew Attard
Programme:
Design - MPhil/PhD
Start date:
Dec-19
Mode of study:
Full time
Research title:
Eye drawing world views: an exploratory practice into eye drawing from life
Biography
Born in Malta (1987).
In 2018 he was awarded his Masters by research degree from the Digital Arts department at the University of Malta, where he had started exploring the possibilities of using an eye tracker as a drawing medium.
In 2009 he moved to Venice, Italy, where he worked and collaborated with; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the USA Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and Galleria Michela Rizzo. In 2011 he was awarded a one year-long artist residency at Forte Marghera, Venice, where he started dealing with his artistic research into drawing and perception.
Since 2012 he exhibited in Venice, Rome, Genoa, London, Valletta, Beijing and Los Angeles among other cities. In 2014, Galleria Michela Rizzo invited him for the bi-personal show In Between/Viewpoints, with Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov. During the same year he also exhibited, You are a Poser! in Brussels, and, We are All Posers in Bergamo, during the Gamec Art Date week. In 2017 he was selected for the 3rd edition of the Le Latitudini dell’Arte Biennale, which took place at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, curated by Virginia Mastroverde. In 2018 he won the Under 30 Euromobil art prize at ArteFiera, Bologna.
In 2019 he was selected for a third time to exhibit during Ten Artists to Watch at LACDA, Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts. During the same year, he was also present during the collective show Soglie e Limiti, curated by Elena Forin at Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice. His works were exhibited at the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair with Blitz, Valletta, and was selected by Ilaria Bonacossa to participate in Artissima Telephone at the OGR spaces in Turin, taking place during the Artissima Art Fair.
He was recently present during the collective show, Dinamogrammi - Corpo_Mente_Immaginario_Ideologia_Desiderio, at Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice. His works, which delineated the eye drawing of iconographic imagery where exhibited alongside works by León Ferrari and Nanni Balestrini, curated by Viana Conti. He was also part of the online project, Re-Index, curated by Elena Forin.
My interest in drawing prevailed over the years, and I am ever more interested in how drawing can be influenced by our contemporary times.
I am intrigued by how drawing can be reassessed in the light of the way our current age modifies our interaction with the world through the constant introduction of new technologies and media (and not only). My interest in the extension of drawing through contemporary technologies such as the eye tracker, lies within the technology’s capability of tracing gestures which were previously imperceptible. When adapted to the art world, this allows for a rethinking of the act of drawing, while data becomes a fertile ground for creative processing.
In this context my research inscribes itself in the ever growing field of art-tech symbiosis, exploring the creative affordances of an eye tracker, performance, video and computational algorithms as drawing media. During my current research of attempting to draw from life through my eye movements with the use of an eye tracker, I find myself dealing with new modes of looking and perceiving. Moreover, the device allows for the by-passing of the ‘artist’s hand’, re-evaluating drawing methodologies.
My practice-based PhD is supported by the Malta Arts Scholarships scheme.