BIO

BIO

.

Matt Gatton is a scholar based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and a founder of the field of archeo-optics. He was born in Europe, raised in North America, and performed his graduate studies in Asia. He specializes in the aesthetic and ritual uses of physical light in built spaces during prehistory and antiquity. He has written on the origins of art for the festschrift of Oxford art historian Martin Kemp (Zidane Press). Gatton’s groundbreaking work on optical distortions at Lascaux was published in the Journal of Applied Mathematics (APLIMAT); and his work on the ritual use of optics at the influential ancient Greek temple of Eleusis was published by Oxford University Press. Gatton has presented his work at the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford, the University of Cologne, Slovak University, Vanderbilt University, and elsewhere. A large international arts festival in Belgium was themed on Gatton’s writings, which were also discussed by Nigel Spivey on the the BBC series How Art Made the World, and presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson on National Geographic’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

Renowned scholar Alan Segal found Gatton’s insights “an absolutely fascinating prospect…. amazing… and I think credible.”