Matthew Purdon explores the boundary between artist and audience through installation, painting and performance art. His work invites space into the creative process through physical participation and spiritual connection. He has an BA in theatre and creative writing from Northwestern University and an MFA in Studio Art from JFK University's Arts & Consciousness program. He was the co-founder of Odyssey works, has exhibited as a professional painter and is a member of Actor's Equity. Matthew is a student of the Ridhwan School Diamond Approach.

Odyssey Works: How do you understand immersivity and interactivity? How does it work and what is the point?

Matthew Purdon: Immersivity is usually understood as surrounding the visual and aural fields of the viewer. By surrounding them with vision and sound, they become aware of their bodies in space and begin to have a deeper experience. I approach immersivity as the total capacity to involve all of the senses as well as the social and cultural landscapes of the viewer. In this way, the viewer becomes an active participant in the space and their total Being becomes enveloped in the work. In the deepest immersions, the boundaries between the participant and the surrounding work dissolves and a direct experience arises.

Interactivity is the capacity for an artwork to receive input from the audience and respond. The input can be structured or spontaneous, trivial or deep, short or long. Interactivity creates space for the presence of the audience to become a participant in completing the artwork. Most forms of interactivity keep the participation within a limited framework in which the resulting outcome of the participation was already anticipated by the structure. I am interested in using interactivity to contact the audience in a direct experience where the resulting outcome is unknown by the artist or audience until the end of their full participation.

OW: Why create experiences?

MP: I am compelled to create experiences because I perceive and understand my Self and the World through the totality of my direct experience. As the creative source unfolds within me, it arises as a totality of a lived experience for others to explore and have their own direct experience.

OW: What are you trying to do with your work?

MP: At the deepest level, I pursue my work to awaken others and myself in relationship to each other by experiencing ourselves as Presence. People are aware that the proliferation of always-on digital interactions and media spectacle is often a barrier to direct experience. The more aware they are of this, the more participation they seek in artistic experiences. My work invites viewers to transform into participants first through a physical invitation. Once grounded in the body, the participants can enter the experience and discover something real.

OW: What is the collaboration between artist and audience as you see it? Where is the artwork itself located?

MP: The artist initiates the collaboration by creating a space for participation. The presence of the artist is conveyed through the experiential aesthetics. This presence grounds the quality and depth of possibility in the space and the level of willingness for the audience to engage in participation. The final artwork is located in the inter-subjective experience of the participants.

OW: You have worked in many different disciplines- painting, theater, interaction design, performance- does this seem to you to be different interests or are the different disciplines linked in some way?

MP: Each artistic discipline informs the other, revealing different facets of a central aesthetic inquiry around participation. They are all grounded in the body and explore the dynamism of creative energy through different experiences of space. Each medium requires a different understanding of form. The aesthetic parameters of each medium are the crucible in which the creative dynamism can work upon the artist. The consciousness of the artistic intent is the catalyst for a transformation in which the artist becomes transparent and the aesthetics become the window that transmits the Presence of the creative action to act upon and awaken the Participant.

OW: How does your art practice influence your life?

MP: The practice is the life. By engaging in the dynamic unfoldment of the creative process, I gain insight into my life as a living process. It is all a journey into the mystery of Being.