Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Matthew C. Wilson
2023-2024
Discipline(s)
Arts and arts studies
Theme(s)
Artificial Intelligence
Future Studies
Visual Arts
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Matthew is an Artist-in-Residence Fellow during 2023-2024.
Matthew C. Wilson is a filmmaker, artist, researcher, writer, and occasional curator. In his videos, sculptures, and installations viewers meet a range of agents—mercurial materials, non-humans, personae, and inter-subjective entities—entangled with natural processes and shape-shifting historical forces. His projects utilize research-oriented, context-specific, and methodologically eclectic approaches to track the historical inertia of modernity through contemporary technological trends and ecological crises, projecting into speculative futures.
Wilson holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University. He has been a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program and numerous residencies including the Jan van Eyck Academie, Skowhegan, CSAV - Artists’ Research Laboratory at Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Tabakalera Artistic Research Residency, and the Terra Foundation Summer Residency, among others. Most recently he was the 2024 Artist-in-Residence at NIAS/KNAW - The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study / Academy of Arts in Amsterdam, NL where he researched the interconnected futures of AI, synthetic biology, and film and artist in residence in the EPFL Enter the Hyper-Scientific program for a project focusing on “interspecies interfaces.” He is currently a research fellow at the Netherlands Film Festival.
His film/video work has screened on Vdrome.org as well as at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, ES, Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro, BR among others. Exhibitions of Wilson’s work include: Galeria SKALA, Poznań, PL; Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, NL; Marres, Maastricht NL; GMK/Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb, HR; Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool, UK; The Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects, Brooklyn, New York, US.
Wilson has also served as a tutor at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, NL, in the F for Fact master’s program. He is currently a mentor to young Dutch artists through the Mondriaan Fonds.
Research Project
Factitious Frames: The Interconnected Futures of AI, Synthetic Biology, and Film
How will the interconnected feedback loop of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and film shape the future of scientific innovation, our understanding of the relationship between technology, nature, and culture, the dynamics between natural and artificial selection, and potentially give rise to a new form of (co)evolution?
Algorithms have discovered potential hereditary molecules and facilitated the creation of biological ‘robots’. They are set to further innovate biological circuit design and gene editing techniques. Bioinspired neural networks underpin AI systems, with DNA serving new exploratory roles in data storage and computation. Photoimaging/film and biology have historical ties, with recent advances including the use of videomicroscopy in biological research. AI continues to revolutionize filmmaking and computer vision, from hardware to software to generative AI. Simultaneously, cinema serves as a space to explore future scenarios involving both AI and the technological intervention into biological systems; it also inspires further research and primes the public for the arrival of the future.
Matthew C. Wilson’s project will probe the intricate relations between AI, synthetic biology, and film through future scenarios and moving image research. “Factitious Frames” speaks to the exploration of “factitious” — that is, artificially constructed — realities, with the “frame” pointing to the shared logics of sequencing and structuring both materials and meaning. It aims to explore how these disciplines could further co-evolve and drive transformative changes. The project will draw on approaches from experimental film, speculative documentary, and future fiction to envisage this convergence.
Research Interests:
AI and synthetic biology convergence; cinema and scientific innovation; speculative documentary; technology-nature co-evolution