working on a new body of work that is almost entirely set in remote regions and national parks within America. MUSÉE: Because the crowds in your photographs are so ephemeral, the focus is drawn instead to the
spaces that these humans inhabit. Why do you think place is important to pay attention to? MATTHEW: My interest lies in the dialogue between setting and human activity. The setting, it is the one sharp element in my photographs, helps to tell the story. For instance, the Women’s March photo would not have stood stood out, or driven the story behind it framed in front of the Washington Monument. In some of the Screen Lives photos you can’t see my subjects but you can make out their personal belongings, such as photographs they have on their walls and books on their shelves. MUSÉE: As a child of Americans that was raised in France, do you think your unique childhood af-
fected your sense of place and identity? How has this influenced your work? MATTHEW: Absolutely. For instance, Screen Lives wouldn’t have happened if I would have been allowed
to watch television as a child. Because I wasn’t; there wasn’t a TV in the house at all. When I went to Yale, I obsessed over watching television, and gleefully watched Melrose Place and other trashy TV shows of the early 1990s with friends, and still do to this day. Screen Lives came about because of my own obsession with screens, which is my parent’s doing. I also grew up looking at a lot of art, having been dragged into churches and museums as a child. Today, I am grateful for the cultural education my parents gave me. I also think that growing up bilingual and bicultural made me more attuned to cultural differences. I think it’s given me a way to examine our world in a more alert and critical way. MUSÉE: Technological determinism is rampant today— a lot of people are quick to blame the technol-
ogy rather than human nature for our addiction to television and phone screens. Can you tell us about your personal relationship with technology? MATTHEW: My current relationship with technology has evolved, much like everyone else’s. I now use
smart phones and iPads much more than televisions to gather information and watch shows. My use of these technologies have definitely increased, and my work reflects the constant presence of these devices and screens everywhere in our lives. Many people want to know if I think of these shifts positively or critically, but I don’t think is entirely relevant. Like most people, I see good and bad things that have come about as this technology has entered our lives. The genie is out and there’s no going back. However, I think art plays a very important part in holding a mirror up to our lives and allowing us the space with which to consider these changes. I think the awareness and ensuing conversation are what is most important. MUSÉE: How do you think our lives’ constant mediation by technology has changed our relationship to, and experience of, the city? MATTHEW: It has definitely made people less aware of their surroundings and has presented most of us an inability to live in the moment without holding up our phones to capture something and immediately share it online. This has been good for my work, but perhaps not great for our society as a whole. We don’t know how to spend time alone anymore. A few years ago a person who showed up to dinner before their dining companions, might have started a conversation at the bar. Today, we use that time to get up to date with the news, Facebook, or Instagram. MUSÉE: Your photographs straddle the line between realism and abstraction. In your interview with
the Aperture Foundation, you stated that, “The photograph is as much of a construction as any painting.” In what ways do you manipulate reality with your camera? MATTHEW: The minute you take a photograph and choose what goes in your frame and what does not,
you have edited the story. A scientist would tell you that the mere act of observing something alters its behavior. I’m often waiting for the right moment in which the movement of people becomes interesting
Matthew Pillsbury, Top: Hanami 14, Inokashira Park, Saturday April 5, 2014; Bottom: Unisphere, Queens, NY, 2016.
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