Matt Kenyon: Coke is it at Parodic Machines

Matt Kenyon’s Coke is it is featured in Parodic Machines, a new exhibition at Davidson College’s Van Every Gallery in Davidson, North Carolina from Oct. 24 — Dec. 13. 

In this artwork, the routine destruction we do to our bodies, mitigated through corporate mass media, is comically expressed through a robot named C3 (parodying Coca Cola’s low-carb product C2). C3 is a hex-crawler robot, outfitted with a CMUcam, enabling it with the ability to search and find puddles of Coca Cola placed on the gallery floor. When C3 finds a puddle of Coke, it sucks the beverage up through an electrical pump, and then sprays it across itself. The acidic compounds in Coke eventually eats through the robot’s skin, finding its way to the circuitry, causing it to break down. The robot is designed to search and consume until it kills itself. Companies such as Coca Cola deploy marketing strategies that infuse culture with a sense of well-being and elevated self-worth, contradicting the actual benefits of the consumable product. The show also featuring the work of David Bowen, Nick Bontrager, Matt Kenyon, Hye Yeon Nam, Fernando Orellana

Parodic Machines
October 24 — December 13, 2013
Featuring the work of David Bowen, Nick Bontrager, Matt Kenyon, Hye Yeon Nam, Fernando Orellana
Discussion Panel: October 23, 6 p.m.
Opening Reception: October 24, 6:30 p.m.
Van Every Gallery, Belk Visual Arts Center
http://​www​.david​son​.edu/​t​h​e​-​a​r​t​s/art