Interview with Matthew Pagoaga at The Arcade of Hypermodernity / Studio Channel Islands

The Arcade of Hypermodernity

Interview with artist Matthew Pagoaga

Studio Channel Islands Art Center, Camarillo, CA

June 1 - July 27, 2024

Original music used is "Arcade Fantasy" by Joseph Carrillo, which was created for and part of the exhibition.

The Arcade of Hypermodernity is an immersive journey into the intersection of technology and imagination featuring both unadulterated enjoyment and profound socio-political reflection on contemporary issues. Featuring works by: Carlos Luna James, Chenhung Chen, Chris Towle, Edwin Vasquez, Eugene Ahn, Girlacne, Gregory Frye, Ibuki Kuramochi, Ismael de Anda III, Jason Jenn, Jeff Frost, Jennie E Park, Jody Zellen, Joseph Carrillo, Karen Hochman Brown, Leslie Muse, Liberty Worth, Matthew Pagoaga, R SKY Palkowitz, Vojislav Radovanović

Curated by Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanović

Artist Statement- Matthew Pagoaga

"My work interprets datasets toward aesthetic revisualizations and embodied experiences utilizing a combination of mixed-media, technology, video, and public art. These revisualizations and experiences probe elements of shared exploration, self-history, and collaborative play while, at times simultaneously, interpreting processes of archival degradation, social justice, and disruption. Engaging technology in artwork carries a noted duality in the legacy of technology’s implementation- as tools of oppression, entanglement, destruction- and as tools of fecundity, engendering new thought and energizing change. Juxtaposition of these polarities feeds the bulk of my work, vacillating between critique of what is and was, and intervention toward an ethical connected future.

Within my work in this exhibition, "Trust", I am interested in the manner in which capitalism lends legitimacy and codifies objects between art and commercial goods This, simultaneous with examining social media exchanges of privacy for entertainment and implicit consent in online networks. The interactions with the work and surrounding merchandise re-render to me a current craze and economic shift brought by commodification of personal data and industrial production of all we ingest.

In "And I am Afraid of Whales", conversations between myself and my two siblings led to ruminations on childhood media and an examination of media forces that worked to accurately portray, inaccurately heighten, or inaccurately mitigate the dangers we would face as adults. Via a built nostalgic box presenting interactive media waiting to be uncovered, I aimed to interrogate my inherent privilege in fear and anxiety while sourcing the roots of a complicated myriad of personal relationships to policing, domestic violence, insects, whales, death, and, above all, fear.

Artist Bio- Matthew Pagoaga

Matthew Pagoaga is a Los Angeles-based artist and technologist. His work interprets datasets toward aesthetic revisualizations and embodied experiences utilizing a combination of mixed-media, technology, video, and public art. Matthew’s work probes elements of shared exploration, self-history, and collaborative play. At the same time, his work also interpretsprocesses of archival degradation, social justice, and disruption. Matthew's work has been jury-selected in the MOZAIK Future Art Awards in both 2020 and 2021, won multiple Honoraria awards from the Burning Man organization, received a grant from the CalArts Commission on Sustainability (CCS), as well received other honorariums and awards. Matthew holds an M.F.A. in Art + Technology from California Institute of the Arts, and has served as Director of Media Studies, Production Services at Pitzer College since 2022. Matthew is actively creating work that hybridizes gallery installation work with a post-studio, public art and sculpture practice.

matthewpagoaga.net

IG: @matthewpagoagaart