Beyond the Screen - An Interview with Matthew Bogdanow by Zeenah Alsamarrai

Self Portrait, 2018.

    As the opportunity emerged to interview my classmate, Matthew Bogdanow, I was ecstatic. A man of very few words, I looked forward to what had to say about his practice and outlook.  

    To give some context to his work, let me introduce him; Matthew Bogdanow is an emerging artist who works primarily in photography, but also in video, sculpture, and performance. He often uses his own image as the central subject of his work, presenting self-portraits that push the boundaries between the public and private realms. His work invites the viewer to know him while simultaneously creating barriers or limits to this knowledge. Matthew engages with themes related to video games, computers, or to photography itself, conceptually employing technology to both create his work but also to present technology as the primary subject of the artwork itself. Matthew was born in 1997 in Coquitlam, BC where he still lives to this day. 

Punch Clock, 2020. A selfie taken every hour for a month, this image is a zoom in of a particular moment in time.

To kick things off I asked every artist’s dreaded question, “Tell me about your art practice, who are you? What do you do?”  

Immediately I am met with an “oh boy.” 

M: “I don’t know, my art practice is definitely weird. Most of it focuses on technical aspects, I usually find a technique or something I want to explore on a tactical level and then I make it work with that.”  

He gives me a defeated laugh, “Jeez, can you maybe make that a little less general?” 

I obliged and probed, intrigued by this idea of a technical process that leads into a conceptual one. He explains to me, 

M: “It probably just has to do more with my background not being a traditional artist. I didn’t take art classes in high school, I didn’t do much of that on my own time, but I did spend most of my own time either learning software or just playing video games.”  

He takes a pause to ponder and say’s “it’s always a question of what I can do before what I should do.” 

Z: “What I can do before what I should do,” I repeat, sitting with that statement for a moment.  

Untitled, 2020. A still from a film by Matthew utilizing AI deepfakes.

  Taking into consideration the circumstance of being in art school with no background in a traditional art practice, and how that leads to choosing to go into art school. So, I asked. He explained to me that he was always creatively inclined, he just never learned how to paint or draw, it was a progression of photography into working with photoshop. Matthew tells me that this progression furthered into a challenge, the simple act of going into art school without learning how to paint or draw.  

Z: “So, what do you find the most challenging part aside from being in a contemporary art setting without knowing to paint or draw? I mean the way our classes are set up; we don’t really do much of that.”  

Matthew takes a moment, and carefully answers with a slight chuckle, “thinking about art.” 

A moment of silence ensues, as he gathers his thoughts, I ponder the whole concept of thinking about art, it’s more profound than the statement lets on at first, it leads us into a bit of a banter on how we’re expected to communicate within art school 

M: “Saying what I’m actually thinking, putting my thoughts into words. That’s a struggle of mine, and that’s something you kind of do have to do a lot” he continued. 

Z: “Weirdly enough, right? You’d think our thoughts would be communicated through our artwork and then you have to actually talk about it too.”  

M: “Yeah, yeah there’s a weird juxtaposition.” 

Z: “You’d think your work better communicates what you're thinking about than you can with your words” 

M: “Oh yeah that’s not even a question to me” 

    Now, I’m someone who’s spent the past 3 years in classes with Matthew, his work is unlike anything I’ve seen my peers create. There is an acute sense of vulnerability in his work, as aforementioned he is a man of a few words, but he often presents work that takes place in his most personal spaces: his bedroom, his car, his video games. Every work of Matthew’s you see will tell you more about him. 

Z: “Is that a strange experience for you, listening to people critique your work” 

M: “I don’t really find it strange. I mean the thing is, my work is definitely trying to communicate myself to some extent, and I want that...” he trails off. 

“I don’t know, I enjoy hearing what people interpret my work as, in a sense. Like it or not, I made my peace years ago with the fact that no one else thinks like I do completely. So, everyone is going to interpret my work differently and I like that. Having a little bit of open-ended-ness is definitely something that I try for.” 

    His words held resonance. It is hard to navigate art school, a place where professors are telling you have a clear meaning, when you’re more interested in how the viewer derives meaning. This line of thought prompts my next question, beyond the realm of schooling. 

Z: “What are the things you are interested in thinking about?” 

M: “I’m definitely interested in the march of technology, AI, and what a world might look like at our current pace.” 

Z: “Working with technology and AI, those are politically charged things in which everyone has opinions regarding the laws and regulations around them. Do you think about that in your work, or do you want your work to be divorced from the politics?” 

M: I usually tend to steer clear of politics, to some extent. I just feel like I'm definitely not educated enough to comment on stuff like that. Usually, my work isn’t so much about the technology itself, it ends up being a celebration of it in some ways.”  

    This illustrates a new way of thinking about technology in art, Matthew views his use of technology the way that a painter views paint. Technology, in this context, is just an exceptionally new medium that bares the weight of politicization due to the current climate in a way that paint never really has. Matthew tells me he welcomes the political critique, he understands it, and can’t avoid it; politics is inherent but it's not the intent for him.  

Given this understanding of what Matthew thinks about, I began to wonder, what does he enjoy?  

M: Probably playing video games or just games in general with my friends. Just spending time with a bunch of people but focusing on a specific task. It’s a lot of fun.” 

Z: “I feel like gaming is misunderstood.” 

M: “I mean, there are stigmas around it that I don’t this are entirely true, but some can be a little fair. The 30-year-old dude sitting in his parent's basement, overweight and just plugging away every day, everyone thinks that everyone that games is like that, but that’s not at all true. The more competitive you are as a gamer, the better shape you actually have to be in, which is funny to see.” 

Titan, Matthew's digital character on the video game Destiny 2

    Matthew takes a pause here, and as he continues it’s clear to see his work with technology illustrated as his mode of connection to others. This is that sense vulnerability in Matthew’s work, he takes the ways he knows how to connect with people and makes it into an artwork thus connecting with more people. 

M: “I don’t know, there's also a lot of people that think games are a waste of time. That’s a bit loaded because I think that while some games are a waste of time and you can easily waste a ton of time playing games, some of them you can get a lot out of during that time. I’ve built friendships that are basically entirely built on playing videogames together, and I wouldn’t know these people if I didn’t play video games, and that’s worth a lot to me.” 

    As we close the interview we chat about the gaming industry, animation, and professional gaming. I get a sense of closure here, as we came full circle. This whole discussion about technology and his use of it comes down to a very human desire to connect to others. He chooses art as it allows him to explore these concepts of connection and vulnerability through technology.  

I ask one final question, “If you had all the technological know-how in the world, what would you create?” 

M: “I think I might like to make a VR game, it would probably cool to start by replicating the spaces that I inhabit, like my room” 

With that, I leave you with the excitement of playing the Day in the Life of Matthew Bogdanow VR game. 

Untitled, 2018. A durational work with photo taken every minute of Matthew's room for one day.