Matthew Gardiner

Oriboticist, Artist & Designer, Researcher, Origami Theorist, Art Science Practitioner, Speculative Designer, Software and Electronics Designer, Experience Curator, Traditional and Digital Maker

Austria

About

Dr Matthew Gardiner, artist, researcher and pioneer of the convergence of origami, folding and robotics and the inventor of Oribotics. Oribotics is a field of research that thrives on the aesthetic, biomechanic, and morphological connections between nature, origami and robotics. See matthewgardiner.net Gardiner’s research-based practice contexts are team-based research collaborations with commercial and research entities; and his artistic practice which draws on experience extending across aesthetic and interactive experience design, parametric origami design, manufacturing, design of new digital fabrication methods, expert-level origami, curation and code. Gardiner’s philosophy on teaching art and design is based on Art Thinking, Design Thinking and Origami Thinking and seeks to allow students to discover methods that are informed by the naturally occurring relationships between concept, handwork & fabrication and social context. His artworks works portray a future wherein folding forms the fundamental fabric of life, and his artistic process explores Folding as Code for Matter, creating works that exhibit material intelligence. He is author of best-selling Everything Origami, Designer Origami and Ultimate Origami.

Experience

  • Ars Electronica Futurelab (15 yrs 3 mos)
    • Head of Art Science Research
      Mar 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 4 mos

    • Key Researcher / Artist
      Apr 2011 - Mar 2023 · 12 yrs

      Integrating artistic concepts, production, materials and personal fabrication research, and radical innovations in functional aesthetics.

  • Director at Airstrip
    1999 - Present · 27 yrs 6 mos

    Airstrip provide bespoke Art, Design, Code, Origami, and Robotics services to arts companies, artists and small to medium businesses.

  • Artist in Residence at Ars Electronica Futurelab
    Apr 2010 - Oct 2010 · 7 mos

    Developed interaction concepts for a new generation of Oribotics, produced 50 oribots in the Ars Electronica Fablab. Exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival 2010, and then set up permanent exhibit in the museum of the future.