Haruspex - a solo show by Matt Steinke
Friday May 11 2007 8PM - 11PM

Runs through Tuesday June 12th (Hours Sat: 12-5pm Tuesday 8PM - Midnight)
Deadtech 3321 W. Fullerton Ave. Chicago, IL http://www.deadtech.net
On Friday, May 11, Deadtech presents new work by Matt Steinke in an installation entitled Haruspex. Starting with the historical role of the haruspex as an interpreter of the mysterious will of the gods through study of sheep livers and entrails, Steinke looks at attempts to divine meaning from the unknowable natural world through analysis and acquisition. His attention is on the ambiguous realm of the neglected, intangible and forgotten, artifacts from ancient and contemporary worlds.

Chicago Reader Critics Choice 5/11/07

Matthew Steinke is an alchemist. In a era of multimedia works created by collectives and art stars with workshops of hirelings, Steinke has the ideas, the skills, and the work ethic to operate as a scrappy, no-budget demiurge. His dense, funny, haunting installations and performances feature everything from animatronic puppetry and meticulous animation to interactive homemade kinetic and sound apparatuses. Each piece offers an incomplete glimpse into an evocative, elegant, claustrophobic cosmos. The installation Haruspex, inspired by the Etruscan priests who divined using sheep livers, addresses the mystical process by which cultural institutions derive meaning from ancient documents and artifacts. It features a screening of Steinke's stop-motion and special-effects animation "Sky of Breaths," an unearthly vignette about the experimental incantations of a wizard-curator. The video will be accompanied by animatronics and performance as well as delicate paintings of surreal scenes suggested by the plaques on natural history museums.