Matt Steinke

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Originally from East Texas, Matt Steinke is a synesthete artist based in Rhode Island. His practice utilizes real-time interactions between visible and invisible spaces, fostering dialog between image and sound. Steinke’s work encompasses animations, graphic scores, and text-based compositions, often executed by mechatronic sculptures and robotic musical instruments.

Integrating ready-made objects with technological innovation and traditional sculpture, Steinke’s installations generate physical movements and live sounds. These self-operating systems function as critical spaces for exploring themes related to psychology, ecology, and consumerism. His aesthetics, shaped by found media and instructional texts, are interpreted through visual metaphors and synesthetic experiments, each offering a distinct articulation of a possible future.

Over the past two decades, Steinke’s work has been presented in museums, galleries, festivals, and DIY venues across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He holds an MFA in Art and Technology Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon graduation in 2004, he received The Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Interdisciplinary/Computer Art. He was a juror’s finalist and Seed Grant recipient for ArtPrize 2016 and a 2015 New Music USA Project Grant recipient. He received an award at the 2018 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition for his “Stepper Rattle” instrument. He was a founding member of 1990s post-rock-noise bands including Mocket, Satisfact, and Octant. He recorded and released over ten albums for Kill Rockstars, K, and Up records while collaborating with recording artists The Need, Miranda July, and Joe Preston.

In 2021, he worked with the Portuguese sound art collective, Sonoscopia, to develop ”Artificialia”, a large-scale multimedia installation at the Teatro Municipal do Porto, and presented his solo installation, “Hazardous Phenotypes”, at the Festival Internacional de Marionetas do Porto.”His sound sculpture, Earplugs, was exhibited in 2022 at the Contemporary Austin Jones Center, and his solo exhibition, Un-Verb, was presented in 2022 at Northern-Southern Gallery.

Steinke’s work has been featured in Artweek LA, The Village Voice, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Wired, and on the cover of Tape Op.

CV [pdf]