Matthew Pagoaga is a Los Angeles-based researcher and artist whose work explores representations of altered states in cinema, theories and representations of psychedelic experience, and capitalist sites operating through dissemblance. His research critiques epistemic monism in psychedelic cinema and theory, while his artistic practice uses cinematic deconstructions and transformative digital data processes to probe how technologies mediate, extract, and attempt to simulate perception.
Matthew’s artistic work has been exhibited across the United States as well as internationally in England, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Turkey. His work has been jury-selected in the MOZAIK Future Art Awards in both 2020 and 2021, and he is a Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship awardee.
From 2022 to 2025, Matthew served as Director of Media Studies, Production Services for The Claremont Colleges. He has taught courses on video art, film production, and algorithmic creativity. He has guest lectured for prominent organizations such as the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, USC Stark Producing Program, and AFI Conservatory.
Research and Creative Interests
Altered consciousness, psychedelics, mesmerism, hypnosis, neuroscience, predictive processing, biosemiotics, umwelt, onto-ethology, intoxication, somnambulism, occultism, absurdism, phantasmagoria, magic lanterns, boundary-work, pseudoscience, quackery, liminality, dreams, pseudoplaces
Education
M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts
B.A., Antioch University Los Angeles