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Matthew Board | Cincinatti, Ohio | artist website Artist Matthew Board’s assumed online company, Vaultair, presents a strategy for deconstructing the binary categories of gender by creating the post-modern cyborg. A visit to the website shows that the artist has created human “shells”. The shells are constructed as idealized representations of male and female figures, but the interiors of the shells are really automatons called “Solutions”. The website is divided into categories for military, corporate, and domestic sectors of society. Visitors to the website can click on a category and, through flash animation, view a demonstration of the automaton’s performance within a category. Board calls into question the relationship between science and technology in the creation of a futuristic model that does not conform to specific gender roles. The automatons are egalitarian in their abilities to perform tasks and therefore, according to the artist, they can support the traditional gender ideals, but are not bound to them. Playing on advertising’s current strategy of the objectification of the body, the shells are seen as objects of desire. In theory, the human looking shell with a robotic interior deconstructs gender because while the shell might play to the male and female-looking models of gender, the interiors are non-gendered. The automaton transgresses gender boundaries because they perform duties that defy traditional gender specifications; in fact, the automaton is a confusion of boundaries. The artist challenges the traditional male/female system by creating shells that have the appearance of being biological, but the system inside is robotic. The website also invites viewers to email for more information which creates an interactive element to the work. Currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, Matthew Board has an M.F.A. from the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. He specializes in electronic and internet art and has exhibited internationally. www.vaultair.org has been published in ARTbase. - by Karen Roberts
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