Matt McCormick is a 34-year-old artist and filmmaker who has made several award winning short films in recent years. His work blurs the lines between documentary and experimental filmmaking to fashion witty and abstract observations of contemporary culture and the urban landscape. His film Towlines explores the role of the tugboat in modern society, while American Nutria examines the plight of an imported species while chastising capitalism’s tendency to create its own disasters. The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal makes the observation that the process of destroying one art form unwittingly creates another, while his installation piece Ride a Wave To Tomorrow’s Sunset reflects on the need for ‘synthetic meditation’.
Matt’s work has screened in film festivals, art museums, and microcinemas around the globe, appeared on MTV and the Sundance Channel, and has received positive reviews from Art Forum, The New York Times, and Film Comment magazine. Matt has worked and collaborated with many artists and musicians, including The Shins, Miranda July, Sleater-Kinney, The Postal Service, and Calvin Johnson. Matt has had three films screen at the Sundance Film Festival, and been included in the traveling group exhibitions “Uncertain States of America” and “Baja to Vancouver.” He has received awards including Best Short Film from the San Francisco International Film Fest, Best Experimental from the New York Underground Film Fest, and Best Short from the Ann Arbor Film Fest, and his film ‘The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal’ was named as a ‘Top 10 Film of 2002’ by both The Village Voice and Art Forum magazine.
Matt is also the founder of Peripheral Produce, an internationally recognized video distribution label specializing in short experimental work, and the director of the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival, Portland’s premiere event for experimental, documentary, and otherwise obscure contemporary cinema. Started in 1996, Peripheral Produce is a screening series and video-label that produces and distributes compilation tapes and DVDs of short experimental film and videos. Operating much like a record label, Peripheral Produce represents 26 different artists, including Miranda July, Bill Brown, Deborah Stratman, Sam Green, and Naomi Uman. Peripheral Produce has released 14 titles and was noted as being “...a jumpily ambitious distribution hub for some of the most compelling experimental work out today...” by Film Comment magazine. The Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival, an off shoot of Peripheral Produce, began in 2001 as a way to showcase Peripheral Produce artists and bring new, innovative work from around the globe to Portland. An annual festival, special guests have included Jem Cohen, Martha Colburn, Elisabeth Subrin, and Naomi Uman, and attendance numbers in the thousands.
When not completely immersed in cinematic endeavors, Matt may be found making music under the guise Very Stereo, writing in his blog Action Items, or wandering the streets taking pictures.
Abbreviated screening and exhibition history: