Maestro

Monet brought an unrecognized beauty to lily pads; Dada undermined convention in surrealistic thought and ideas; Antero Alli, Fellini and Chekov redirected the attention and focus of the shadows on the screen and stage. Joseph Matheny is the unrecognized artistic and creative genius of the future of "the medium" - a multimedia newMedia fresco of spectacle. With the focus of an avatar, the passion of a philosopher, and the intellectual rigor of a Leibniz, it is no wonder that an early quote from Henry IV graces the early portfolio of his works, "O, gentlemen, the time of life is short! And if we live, we live to tread on kings!"; for Matheny has walked with and tread upon the paths of the philosopher kings of the post quantum age. Herein lies the portrait of a once and future king.

In the tradition of the Dadists, Matheny has not been content to make art but to affect all aspects of it in a post contemporary and even futuristic calliope of the post quantum age spectacle - to provoke, incite and confront the expected, undermine and twist it unrecognizable and hit the refresh button on stale convention. In turn of the century China, the art of moving pictures was called shadow magick. Not merely redefining but explosively shattering the formidable boundaries of the medium which categorizes the surrealist manifestations of creativity, Matheny has already breached the proscenium between shadow and light.

No mere gardener, but a horticulturist planting the seeds of dynamics and making us constantly ponder if we, ourselves, are mere works of fiction. In his deft care, memory becomes an art of imagination, of chance, and of pre-pro-retro-type - compelling us to think, interact and react.

Joseph Matheny, as the zenmaster of broadband, orchestrated the stellar transformation of the Tasili cave art original Incunabula courier typed xeroxed memeographed one-dimensional text to a magickal-mystical alliance with technology. A multimedia kaleidoscope of sight, spectacle, text in a cogent dance of masks. To say his methods are immersive or convergent is too limiting. Taking performance art from its counter-culture rave discordian situationist surrealist chaos-infested roots, Matheny is transcending "art" to an imperceptible level beyond paint and canvas, text and hypertext, cinema and guerrilla theatre, in a resonating cabaret beat that rocks with a "smoke em' if you got em'" attitude. Matheny puts the "est" back in gestalt in a cut-up linguistic collage. Not just a reality programmer, but the wunderkind of the cyber-age, Matheny is the undefined mediator of the bridge between the blind technological drive toward innovation and the grandeur of a vision of the richly resonant possibilities of hyper-realities and beyond.

A self-described cultural provacateur, he is the cultural auteur of the spectacle. From early days as performance artist, culture jammer, self-styled media critic to developing the Acrobat Adobe Reader© - un solo mondo it has taken technology nearly a decade to play catch up with his vision - though, no doubt, that same vision still dreams in technocolor hues far beyond the event horizons McKenna barely recognized and, no doubt, there is no horizon, no undiscovered country which the artist's imaginative wizardry has not already breached.

Joseph Marie Jacquard, the first uber-programmer, developed a machine Babbage used as his model for the Analytical Engine - the prototype of Turing's which, in turn, became the computer. Jacquard's machine literally wove a brocade of exquisite threads - automated and replicable. Joseph Matheny is the uber-developer of the interface of the game/story/technology patois. Matheny emerged from the pre-PC days when Atari ads appeared at the back of comic books between Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads and Scott Adams interactive computer adventures. In a world verging on the brink of the PC and home video-game explosion, the "world" of interaction with technology was changed forever and is forever changing. In the early and seemingly "lost" tradition of Scott Adam's rich storytelling, albeit 2 dimensional adventures, Matheny has already embarked into the neXt dimension with innovations on the horizon which will bring his art-reality-surrealist-situationist programming to fruition. While Adams will be remembered in gaming history as the designer whose impact laid the groundwork for modern computer gaming, Matheny's similar impact on DVD and future multimedia platform interfaces will have no less an impact. The old Commodor, though now an artifact of the terminal generation, "lit the fire of imagination" in the pre-PC age. Will Matheny carry the torch across the threshold and fuel the fire for a new gen of gamer and techno-genue?

Some great things emerged from this last great internet "big bang" (just prior to the bottom falling out of a lot of poorly planned dot.coms and WebTV). As a pioneer of this medium, Matheny is certainly one of the best the Net Bang has birthed from its heydey in the chaos matrix - but more so - Matheny brings creative fireworks to awaken the future bonfire.

While those like Netscape and other pioneers look hard and fast for strategems to recoup losses and market share, Matheny's endeavors will most certainly continue to birth (or, at least break the yoke) on new and exciting innovations. The key that is overlooked in the mad bustle for venture capital and displaced dot.com dollars is not just artistry and creativity or even technological wizardry. Joseph Matheny has his finger on the pulse of the immersion mentality and behavioral constructs that compel and inspire the imagination of the derive'. It is his grasp of the combination of all these factors, coupled with an unmatched vision, which the harbinger of the future age of spectacle easily balances.

The technological "ride" is an infinite loop of ups and downs and fads and crazes until the latest and greatest "must-have" artifact of technoshaman wizardry presents itself at the consume-everything doorway. We can be sure that, whatever form or mode or it takes, that Joseph Matheny, the craftsman, the artist, the technowizard and cultural visionary, with horticultural genius, will be at the forefront - surfing the wave.