Matt Roberts

Invasive Species Exhibition

Invasive Species is an ongoing series of photographs, animations, and augmented reality created from plastic debris along the Florida coastline. These works symbolize our interspecies entanglements with plastics, human activity, and the environment, and considers these entanglements as both highly problematic and rich in possibilities.

Invasive Species at Digital Art Month Miami

Invasive Species AR filter was recently exhibited at Digital Art Month Miami 2020 Curated by Contemporary Digital Art Fair

Invasive Species (Bottle Caps): Touch the screen to wear different masks made from images of bottle caps found along the Florida Atlantic Coast. https://www.instagram.com/ar/883813112156460/

Invasive Species AR

The latest augmented reality additions to my ongoing Invasive Species project. These AR projects allow you to become invasive species made from discarded plastics found along the Atlantic Coast. These species symbolize our problematic and burgeoning interspecies entanglements with plastics, humans, and nature.

Invasive Species (Plastic Bottles): Wear a bottle as a mask and open your mouth to birth more invasive species, part plastic, and part human. https://www.instagram.com/ar/434009021287905/

Invasive Species (Plastic Bottle Swarm): Open the app and then your mouth to release an invasive species. https://www.instagram.com/ar/857770141635499/

Invasive Species (Bottle Caps): Touch the screen to wear different masks made from images of bottle caps found along the Florida Atlantic Coast. https://www.instagram.com/ar/883813112156460/

Invasive Species (Wrappers): Touch the screen to wear different masks made from images of wrappers found along the Florida Atlantic Coast. https://www.instagram.com/ar/825977341556164/

Dream Garden

Description:
Dream Garden is a site-specific project to gather, graft and nurture a city’s dreams. Each time a city dweller texts a 7-word dream (a poetic form moving private experience into public space), that dream automatically joins others both in a “garden” (a designated physical location in the city) and online at inthedreamgarden.com. The project shows how how some community resources– like citizens’ dreams — can inhabit and expand a space without wounding it, colonizing it or wasting natural resources. As a political space, it’s urban renewal and greening without displacement. As a philosophical space it suggests that dreaming together may change a city and even a country. As a community garden it suggests that our dreams aren’t wasted—they are growable, transplantable, and in the poetic space of the project, both virtual and real.

How it works:
This project uses Layar, a free augmented reality application for mobile devices. Participants can download the Layar app and see their texted dream joined with others in site-specific locations. The international project is designed to adapt to any urban space.

This is a collaborative project with poet Terri Witek and software developer Michael Branton. For more information about the project visit inthedreamgarden.com

Dream Garden Austin Peay State University

A new garden planted at Austin Peay Department of Art and Design

Dream Garden Summer 17

New Dream Gardens planted this summer

Currents New Media 2017, Santa Fe, New Mexico

ISEA 2017, Manizales, Colombia

Disquiet International, Lisbon, Portugal

ELO 2017, Porto, Portugal

Dream Garden at ACA

Launch of a new Dream Garden at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and an artist talk

OMA Florida Prize Interview

An interview for the Orlando Museum of Art Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibition.

Dream Garden Interview

A segment from an interview about Dream Garden which is part of the 2016 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art.

The Strangers

Burdened by history and our own expectations, art can become settled in space/place. The Strangers invites Orlando Museum of Art visitors to re-meet some familiar OMA holdings. Museum-goers are invited to download the free Layar app on their smartphones and through brief augmented reality encounters get to unknow the collection.

Dream Garden at Art In Odd Places Orlando

A few images from a recent presentation of Dream Garden at AIOP Orlando. Dream Garden Orlando allows participants to text a 7 word dream, which is collected on the Dream Garden website and planted in a augmented reality “garden” at the Orange County Regional History Center.

Unknown Meetings at ISEA 2015 Vancouver Canada

Documentation of a recent installment of Unknown Meetings in Vancouver’s SkyTrain Metro line during ISEA 2015

Unknown Meetings at xCoAx 2015 Glasgow Scotland

Documentation of a recent installment of Unknown Meetings in the Glasgow Subway for xCoAx 2015

Unknown Meetings at Univeristy of Florida

A recent performance and site-specific installation of Unknown Meetings at the University of Florida.

Unknown Meetings

Unknown Meetings is a site-specific augmented reality project that takes as its premise the awkward and surreal encounters that daily occur on commutes. Designed by new media artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek for local transportation systems riders activate via smart phone both an “unknown” object moving over the actual landscape and an accompanying brief poetic audio file which considers such encounters.

These are activated whenever the train approaches a station. Commuters use the free Augmented Reality app Layar on their smart phones to see a floating image—usually an out-of-place object –and hear a brief accompanying text. Stations are nexuses of anxiety when we commute—is this our stop? By floating objects and words that offer still more unexpected juxtapositions, Roberts and Witek try to shift the anxiety of arrival into a consideration of moving “connections.”

FIRE DREAMS

Description:
This project takes as its premise that when we walk through cities, our bodies enter the dreams of other people who’ve walked there. New media artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek map the city by floating various “dreamers” over interesting metropolitan spaces. City wanderers then follow this walkable dream map via an augmented reality phone app. Along the way, they are offered chances to see a dream, hear a dream, text a dream of their own, send a photo, and perform various other transmittable acts. These become part of the living dream map of the city.

How it works:
This project uses Layar a free augmented reality application for mobile devices. Participants can download the Layar app and follow the Fire Dreams map, which is designed as an international project adaptable to any urban space.

Project Website:
http://thefiredreams.com