Matt Steinke is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Rhode Island. His practice combines sculpture and sound to explore the real-time interactions between visible and invisible spaces. Drawing on personal experiences with synesthesia and sound improvisation, he creates installations activated by mechatronic sculptures, and robotic musical instruments incorporating animations, graphic scores, and text-based compositions.
Growing up near NASA and the oil fields of East Texas, where pastoral landscapes meet industrial complexes, Steinke’s work aestheticizes the tension between ecology and technology. His installations challenge perceptions, inviting spectators to reevaluate boundaries between subject and object and reconsider familiar environments and the systems that shape them.
Steinke merges technological innovation with traditional sculpture and readymade objects, repurposing concepts from neuropsychology, product design, and electronic theory. His autonomous systems propose alternative futures, conveying a neurodiverse perspective through synesthetic experiments and nonlinear metaphors that balance meditation, humor, and horror.
Over the past two decades, Steinke’s work has been presented in museums, galleries, festivals, and DIY venues across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He holds an MFA in Art and Technology Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon graduation in 2004, he received The Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Interdisciplinary/Computer Art. He was a juror’s finalist and Seed Grant recipient for ArtPrize 2016 and a 2015 New Music USA Project Grant recipient. He received an award at the 2018 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition for his “Stepper Rattle” instrument. He was a founding member of 1990s post-rock-noise bands including Mocket, Satisfact, and Octant. He wrote, recorded, and released over ten albums for Kill Rockstars, K, and Up records while collaborating with recording artists, The Need, Miranda July, and Joe Preston.
In 2021, he worked with the Portuguese sound art collective, Sonoscopia, to develop ”Artificialia”, a large-scale multimedia installation at the Teatro Municipal do Porto, and presented his solo installation, “Hazardous Phenotypes”, at the Festival Internacional de Marionetas do Porto.”His sound sculpture, Earplugs, was exhibited in 2022 at the Contemporary Austin Jones Center, and his solo exhibition, Un-Verb, was presented in 2022 at Northern-Southern Gallery.”
His work has been featured in Artweek LA, The Village Voice, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Wired, and on the cover of Tape Op.
Selected Press/Reviews
Not Real Art April 2023: Hazardous Phenotypes
NPR KUT Austin: Arts Eclectic
Tape Op May/June 2001: Octant: On Hotrodding Playskool Toys
Glass Tire: Un-verb
Sonoscopia Artificialia
Sitelines: Reverse Plane of Cloudy
The Austin Chronicle Arts: Deliriums
2018 M. Guthman Instrument Competition
Vice: 2016 Guthman Competition
The Civilians: Noplace
ArtPrize: The Magnetosphere
Hackaday: The Tine Organ
Theremin World: Octant