I Die Daily: The Making of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle
Matthew Wallin
July 18 – August 30, 2008

On July 18, 911 Seattle Media Arts welcomed special effects artist and documentary filmmaker Matthew Wallin to its gallery with a video and sound installation based on his forthcoming film I Die Daily: The Making of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. The installation ran through August 30 and featured never-before-seen footage of Matthew Barney at work on the piece that inspired the New York Times to call him “the most important artist of his generation.”

In 1996, deeply intrigued by the work of Barney, filmmaker Matthew Wallin abandoned a steady job to spend the next decade of his life documenting the making of Barney’s epic 5-part film, The Cremaster Cycle. What followed became a passionate exploration into the symbolism, mystery, and intricate process behind the Cycle. The result of his endeavor, I Die Daily, will become the definitive document on The Cremaster Cycle as well as the most comprehensive study on the rise of Barney as a star in the contemporary art world.

Artist Bio

Matthew Wallin is the founder and Visual Effects Supervisor of Mantron Corporation, the visual effects company he started in 2001. Before graduating from San Francisco State University’s Film Department in 1993, Wallin took a job with George Lucas’ special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, where he worked on such films at Twister, Star Wars: Episode 1, and The Mummy. Upon meeting the artist Matthew Barney in 1995, Wallin began working as Visual Effects Supervisor on the Cremaster Cycle, leaving ILM in 1999 and moving to New York City to work fulltime on the Cycle’s final chapter, Cremaster 3.

This exhibition is curated by Misha Neininger