Matilda

Matilda is a small comment on our social and cultural relationship with technology and the physical world. It’s a performative work that invites audiences to pour champagne through psychokinesis.

Matilda challenges audiences to be present, focussed and to embrace a small amount of jeopardy. After listening to an introduction on psychokinesis, audiences try and focus on pouring a glass of champagne without touching the bottle or glass. This is easier said than done.

With the rise of the internet and digital technologies, our attention spans have reduced; we want things now; and have a misplaced confidence in how easy things are. The easier we perceive something to be, the less we listen to instruction, and the more confident we are in our own abilities. This is particularly true with digital technology.

Technology innovation has led us to think interactions with technology and our physical world should be intuitively easy and that learning, no matter how small, is unnecessary. We tend to project the expectation of how easy things are in the digital world into the physical one. At the same time, we are losing our ability to understand the physical environment, its materiality and the way things are made or how they work.

Matilda encourages audiences to think about their relationship with technology and the physical world, or they may just pour a glass of carefully crafted Champagne.