Matt Watkins

I’m an artist in Birmingham UK working with experimental film, photography, sound, and live performance visuals. I enjoy using defunct analogue sound and image machines, slide and film projectors, tape machines, DIY analogue sound circuitry etc….although I spend a lot of time in front of a computer too.

I worked in London as a designer/animator/director with Jamie Hewlett on his Gorillaz project, specialising in game production, print design, live show animation production, DVD interface design, and online marketing. I have been working with live performance visuals for many years including Gorillaz, the Heritage Orchestras' Joy Division Reworked project which toured the UK & Sydney Opera House, and A Time & Place - Musical Meditations on WWI.

I work with drummer Steve Taylor as Mothwasp; an experimental AV project/band inspired by Industrial music and film art experimenters such as Len Lye, Stan Brakhage, Norman McLaren and Ken Jacobs. We like to perform in unconventional spaces including galleries, cinemas, forests, empty shops and factories and enjoy exploring these interesting acoustic spaces.

Recent projects include experimental AV show (as Mothwasp), commissions for the Longbridge Light Festival and photo media production for woodland schooling project Nature Unlimited in Scotland.

I also work with painter Lucy McLauchlan; collaborating on installations, street, mural & gallery projects, and documenting her practice worldwide. In 1999 we founded the Beat13 collective producing exhibits, opening a gallery in Birmingham and hosted workshops in art, music and technology which created the foundations to develop our own practices.