LEVEL 3, GALLERY 30
NEW ZEALAND, BORN 1984
LIVES AND WORKS IN TAMAKI MAKAURAU
PROJECT
Working with the language and aesthetics of internet-based confessional text, Natasha Matila-Smith considers disembodied displays of emotion in the online world, often through the tropes of romance.
If I die, please delete my Soundcloud 2019 is a single channel video work that explores the internet’s lure as both an embodiment of and escape from loneliness. Exploring intimacy at a time when curated online identities are not only commonplace but also expected, the artist sees the possibility of reinventing and selfcensoring as both endless and imminent. Matila-Smith examines how online personalities intersect with real-world ones and what this means for modern identities and society at large.
Originally commissioned by CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand, curated by Serena Bentley as part of Personal Space 2019.
ABOUT
Over a number of works that encompass online aesthetics and confessional text, installation artist Natasha Matila-Smith explores the language of social interactions and the systems and complexities of intimacy. Through themes of longing and desire, and both intersectional and universal perspectives, she extends these concerns by considering our metaphysical relationship with digital space. Matila-Smith has exhibited across New Zealand and internationally. She has held solo shows in Artspace Aotearoa’s Mezzanine Space, Auckland; Te Tuhi, Auckland; and Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin.
Matila-Smith has been in group shows at The Dowse Museum, Wellington; FirstDraft Gallery, Sydney; Waikato Museum, Hamilton; Verge Gallery, Sydney; Bus Projects, Melbourne; Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam; and Te Uru, Auckland. In 2018, she was selected for the Feminism and Pop Culture Networking Tour to Berlin with Goethe-Institut.