Mat Collishaw. The Machine Zone: Personal Exhibition

THE OPERANT CONDITIONING CHAMBER, 2022

This theme continues in the painting series The Operant Conditioning Chamber (2021) — realistic works on aluminum based on archival photographs depicting birds inside Skinner boxes, equipped with buttons linked to a food dispensing system. Psychologist Lauren Slater notes, “Skinner demonstrated that so-called independent responses may merely be conditioned reflexes, thus questioning the very concept of free will.”

The Centrifugal Soul (2016) is a large-scale zoetrope developed in collaboration with evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. Referencing the Victorian era—a frequent source of visual and conceptual material in Collishaw’s practice—the work features a rotating platform adorned with lifelike models of birds and flowers. Lit by strobe lights flashing in perfect sync with the rotation, the scene animates into a continuous illusion: birds hover, flaunt their plumage, and perform intricate mating dances over blooming flora. These courtship rituals are instinctive behaviors programmed by evolution to ensure reproduction and species continuity. Collishaw draws a sharp parallel between these innate displays and the ways in which contemporary technology exploits similar drives. Social media platforms and smartphones harness our deep-seated desire for recognition, prompting the endless curation and projection of idealized versions of ourselves. The Centrifugal Soul reflects on how our performative instincts—once tied to survival—are now redirected into digital self-fashioning, shaped by algorithms and metrics of desirability.

The Nerve Rack (2019) was originally site-specific for the former Ushu Seminary in County Durham. A life-size mechanical eagle was installed in the chapel of St. Cuthbert’s Church, opposite a historic pulpit crowned with a bronze eagle sculpted in the 19th century by architect Augustus Pugin. The tension between the moving machine and the static bronze object embodies the contrast between progress and tradition, the rational and the sacred. Collishaw’s eagle, constructed from sharp metal parts, symbolizes the power and precision of modern technology, while Pugin’s eagle evokes spiritual ideals rooted in history and faith. The artist highlights the manipulative power of images to shape narratives, shift emphasis, and sometimes distort the authenticity of perception. The same object may be perceived differently depending on context, material, and visual interpretation — as sacred or technological, animate or impersonal.

In the video work Alpha/Omega ΑΩ (2016), an astronaut’s glass helmet lies abandoned in a tropical thicket. Reflected in its visor is the curious gaze of a monkey peering inside. This encounter between a primordial creature and a technological relic becomes a metaphor for humanity’s drive toward exploration and understanding—a moment where our evolutionary past meets a possible future in the mirror of speculation.

Expiration Painting, 2016

The series Expiration Painting (2019) consists of reproductions of old master paintings addressing the fleeting nature of life. Collishaw reinterprets these classical images, updating them through a contemporary visual approach. The paintings are framed in plexiglass and reproduce only fragments of the originals — like faded photocopies. At first glance, viewers perceive them as cheap copies, judging the image’s value by a visual template — but up close, the precision and richness of the oil painting reveal their true nature.

This technique serves as a metaphor for perception in the digital age, where the rapid flow of information leads to a loss of depth and uniqueness. Collishaw demonstrates how superficial viewing, hasty judgments, and the devaluation of materials and techniques have become hallmarks of a time when visual images increasingly conform to the logic of digital instability.