Matt Steinke’s sculptures move and sound to reveal unseen expressions of power and perception. His Rhode Island-based practice forces clay, cloth, wood, and metal into contact with electronics, mechanical systems, and music composition. Working through hybrid constructions, he examines how objects enact agency, exploring behavior itself as a sculptural principle. Informed by chromesthesia and long-term sound improvisation, he produces kinetic sculptures and robotic musical instruments, often accompanied by animations, lighting, graphic scores, and text-based compositions.
The youngest of four siblings, Steinke grew up in a neighborhood near a hazardous waste storage facility, the Johnson Space Center, and the oil fields of East Texas—a region where pastoral landscapes intersect with industrial complexes. His work both interweaves and juxtaposes ecology with technology. He probes boundaries between active and passive, pure and toxic, living and nonliving, deconstructing binary oppositions to expose the complexity within materials and their behaviors.
In Niet Stil (2022), mechanized sculptures mimicking objects in Dutch still-life paintings enact tensions between aesthetic form and sonic function. Deliriums (2020) uses robotic instruments to score fragmented mental states drawn from DSM-5 personality clusters. Both works explore complex interactions through sound, sculpture, and performance, interrogating subjectivity within ecological and psychological frameworks.
Steinke’s integration of technological innovation with traditional sculpture and readymade objects takes cues from neuropsychology, product design, and electronic theory. He proposes alternative futures, offering a neurodiverse perspective through synesthetic experiments and nonlinear metaphors. Balancing meditation, humor, and horror, his work invites reflection on the complex interplay between subjects, objects, and the underlying systems that shape them.
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. At age 27, he was a founding member of 1990s post-rock and 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 collaborated 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