Look Longer: Matthew Olivier's Codex Algorithm at Woodmere

Matthew Olivier (b. 1991) is a Canadian visual artist and conceptual artist with major practices in painting and writing, based in Toronto. His writing and video practice constitutes Codex Algorithm, the major conceptual artwork of his career, which claims the algorithmic feed as an artistic medium and reaches hundreds of millions of viewers per year. The work stands in the conceptual lineage of Marcel Duchamp — the readymade’s gesture of selection and reframing, extended into the algorithmic feed, which Olivier claims as an artistic medium. His commissions and collaborations include the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Government of Flanders, M+ Hong Kong, the Munch Museum, MSK Gent, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Avant Arte, Palazzo Maffei, Dior, and the independent game studio thatgamecompany (Sky: Children of the Light) — alongside a private commission from a Trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His first book, The Art of Reading Art, publishes with Smith Street Books in October 2026.

Olivier selected five works from Woodmere’s collection and created a thought-provoking synopsis of each as part of Codex Algorithm, the major conceptual artwork of his career, a genre-defying investigation of images, attention, and the systems that shape what we see. Woodmere has installed tablet computers positioned beside the selected works in its galleries, inviting visitors to watch, listen, and engage with Olivier’s essays and films while viewing the original artworks. This collaboration takes the experience beyond the digital realm, extending the project into the museum itself.

The installations explore an unexpected connection between the art of the past and today’s algorithmic feeds. Across centuries, artists and images have competed for the viewer’s attention, consciously or unconsciously influencing where the eye lands and what image comes next. Codex Algorithm considers historical paintings as predecessors to the contemporary feed where images are selected, framed, and circulated within systems designed to capture attention.

At the center of Codex Algorithm is a deliberately constructed narrator, a synthesized voice that functions as a mask over top of Olivier’s own script and voice acting. Through this recurring “voice in my head,” Olivier raises questions about authorship, mediation, technology, and the increasingly blurred boundary between human and machine-generated communication. Since its launch in 2023, Codex Algorithm has unfolded as a long-form sequence of algorithmic essays, short films, and writings created entirely by Olivier. Reaching hundreds of millions of viewers each year across digital platforms, the project operates simultaneously as artwork, experiment, and critique. Olivier treats the algorithmic feed itself as an artistic medium, one that can be approached with the same intentionality historically associated with oil paint, canvas, paper, photography, and film.

Woodmere’s collaboration with Matthew Olivier, along with the program, An Evening with Matthew Olivier: Exploring the Codex Algorithm, has been made possible through the generous support of Dennis Alter.