Filings the Year 2008

Found filing cabinet, electronics, and wood shop scraps

Matthew Hebert

Filings the year 2008 is an exploration of the disassociating effect of our technology. In this case, I was interested in the way our perception of the landscape changes when an unseen resource is discovered. A found filing cabinet contains mechanical dioramas depicting various techniques of extracting oil. The top three drawers take the viewer on a quick tour through the development of oil harvesting technology. All the dioramas were constructed from scraps from the wood studio, including a solid core door. The piece is powered by a solar panel mounted on the back of the cabinet which charges batteries within. To view the dioramas one looks through a door peephole mounted in the drawer front and then slides the latch lever to the side to activate the lights and motors.

A solar powered outdoor sculpture, Filings has been exhibited in several Southern California venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects, and the Wingnall Museum of Contemporary Art.Matthew Hebert has been working under the studio name eleet warez since shortly after completing his undergraduate studies in the mid-90s. The name is borrowed from hacker culture and is suggestive of the technical sophistication, improvisational spirit, and freewheeling appropriation that is essential to his work. Matthew creates work that deals with technology and its effects on the domestic environment and our sense of space. His work takes recognizable forms and layers new forms of use and meaning onto them. Ultimately, the work generates new forms of interaction between the object, the environment, and the user.

Matthew Hebert’s work has been exhibited at venues including The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco; The California Center for the Art, Escondido; The Chicago Cultural Center, and Core77 in New York. Additionally, Matthew is a member of the collaborative public art team, Unmanned Minerals, with Reno based poet Jared Stanley and Los Angeles based artist Gabie Strong.

Matthew received his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley; and his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts. He has taught at several schools including the University of Wisconsin – Madison, CalArts, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently Assistant Professor of Furniture at San Diego State University.