Cory Arcangel
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Cory Arcangel (born May 25, 1978) is an American
post-conceptual Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work takes some precedence over traditional ...
artist who makes work in many different media, including drawing, music, video,
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, and
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
modifications, for which he is best known. Arcangel often uses the artistic strategy of appropriation, creatively reusing existing materials such as dancing stands, Photoshop gradients and YouTube videos to create new works of art. His work explores the relationship between digital technology and
pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...
. He is a recipient of a 2006 Creative Capital Emerging Fields Award


Early life

Arcangel grew up in Buffalo, New York and attended the Nichols School, where he was a star
lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...
goalie. He was exposed to experimental video artists such as Nam June Paik through the
Squeaky Wheel Buffalo Media Arts Center Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (Buffalo Media Resources INC) is an artist-run, non-profit, media arts center based in Buffalo, New York. Founded in 1985, the organization provides the Western New York region with low-cost media equipment ...
. He was very interested in
guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
, practicing eight hours a day by the time he turned seventeen. He studied classical guitar at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but later switched to major in the technology of music, graduating in 2000. At Oberlin, Arcangel met Jacob Ciocci and Paul B. Davis. Arcangel and Davis formed the Beige Programming Ensemble in 2000, and released a record of
8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
music entitled "The 8-Bit Construction Set" by the age of 19. The 8-bit Construction Set was a record that was made on one side by the Commodore 64 and the other side by the Atari 800. A total of 4 people (Joe Boyd, Jo Bond, Paul B. Davis, and Cory Arcangel) were working on the project and took about 2 years to complete. Arcangel credits
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
, with whom he took a composition class, for his "fascination with finding artistic inspiration in unlikely machines". He describes a piece in which she connected
sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a curve, mathematical curve defined in terms of the ''sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph of a function, graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a Smoothness, smooth p ...
oscillator Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...
s to
loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...
s and output the exact audio frequency as the
resonance Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied periodic force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscillatin ...
of the concert hall, creating an increasingly louder sound. This, he says, was what made it "click" for him. Arcangel counts many among his influences, including
Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...
,
Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...
, and ''
Weekend at Bernie's ''Weekend at Bernie's'' is a 1989 American black comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff and written by Robert Klane, loosely based on the 1959 novella ''The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell'' by Jorge Amado. The film stars Andrew McCarthy and Jona ...
''.


Works


''Super Mario Clouds''

Arcangel's best known works are his
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
game cartridge hacks and reworkings of obsolete computer systems of the 1970s and 80s. One example is ''Super Mario Clouds'' (2002), a modified version of the video game '' Super Mario Bros.'' for Nintendo's NES game console in which all of the game's graphics have been removed, leaving a blue background with white clouds scrolling slowly from right to left.


''I Shot Andy Warhol''

''I Shot Andy Warhol'' (2002) is a modified version of the video game '' Hogans Alley''. It is similar to the original NES game, except that the gangsters from the original have been replaced by
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
, and the "innocents" have been replaced by the
Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
,
Flavor Flav William Jonathan Drayton Jr. (born March 16, 1959), known by his stage name Flavor Flav (), is an American rapper and hype man. Known for his yells of "''Yeah, boyeeeeee!''" when performing, he rose to prominence as a founding member of the rap ...
, and Colonel Sanders. Both the graphics and the programs were modified, a complete binary hack, but the game is downloadable for at home play.


''Totally Fucked''

''Totally Fucked'' (2003) was created by modifying '' Super Mario Bros.''. Arcangel created a world where Mario starts on a single block-cube centered in blue nothingness.


''Pizza Party''

''Pizza Party'' (2004) was a free, functional software package that could be used to order
Domino's Pizza Domino's Pizza, Inc., trading as Domino's, is an American multinational pizza restaurant chain founded in 1960 and led by CEO Russell Weiner. The corporation is Delaware domiciled and headquartered at the Domino's Farms Office Park in Ann Arbor ...
through a command-line interface. The program allowed users to order pizza by typing in commands such as pizza_party -pmx 2 medium regular, which - according to the artist - would order two medium crust pizzas with pepperoni, mushrooms and extra cheese. The piece was commissioned by Eyebeam and implemented by Mike Frumin.


''Sans Simon''

In this 2004 single-channel video, Arcangel points the camera at a television screen that is playing a tape of the concert. Each time
Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...
appears in the frame, Arcangel places his hand over Simon's image. The work is one of several videos, performances and lectures by Arcangel based on Simon and Garfunkel's live concerts.


''Tetris Screwed''

''Tetris Screwed'' (2004) is based upon '' Tetris''; modified to play at a very slow speed, where it takes about 8 hours for the blocks to fall in one complete game. The blocks can still be moved from left to right, but takes minutes for the blocks to fall pixel by pixel. ''Tetris Screwed'' is a binary hack, where the constant delay loop was written by hand in 6502 binary.


''Super Mario Movie''

In collaboration with the art collective Paper Rad, and extended off of Arcangel's ''Totally Fucked'' (2003), ''Super Mario Movie'' (2005) is another modified NES '' Super Mario Bros.'' cartridge, programmed to be a 15-minute video and is available for download for an NES emulator. The video consists of a series of original 8-bit tracks, original texts and "dialogue" boxes, and a complete rework of the background images and coding via 6502 binary.


''Punk Rock 101''

''Punk Rock 101'' (2006) is an example of Arcangel's work with the web as an artistic medium. For this piece, he re-published
Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...
's alleged suicide letter alongside a series of Google Ads. The ads are tailored to the content of any given page, and the piece juxtaposed Cobain's angst with ads selling social anxiety treatment and motivational speaking. Art critic Paddy Johnson wrote of the work, "This is quite possibly the most brilliant subversion of the medium I have seen."


''A couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould''

In 2007, Film and Video Umbrella commissioned Arcangel to produce a new work, ''a couple of thousand short films about Glenn Gould'', using tiny fragments of video, each containing a single note produced by various instruments (and some performing pets) to create an arrangement of Bach's ''Variation no. 1'' (from the Goldberg Variations). To do this, he had to create his own video-editing software.


''The Bruce Springsteen Born to Run Glockenspiel Addendum''

Arcangel's 2007 LP is an intervention into
Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...
's 1975 album '' Born to Run''. While the album's title track includes a glockenspiel part, many of the songs on the album do not. Arcangel created a glockenspiel part for each of these songs, releasing them on this vinyl record, which can be played in sync with Springsteen's original to add a 'missing' part to the original album. In addition to the LP, Arcangel has also performed the piece live.


''Photoshop CS'' series

Arcangel's ''Photoshop CS'' series are large c-print gradient
digital painting Digital painting is an established art medium that typically combines a computer, a graphics tablet, and software of choice. The artist uses painting and drawing with the stylus that comes with the graphics tablet to create 2D paintings within a ...
s created solely in the
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
image editing program. They appear to be a pop art version of
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
or color field painting.


''Arcangel Surfware''

In 2014, Arcangel founded
Arcangel Surfware
'' a software publisher and merchandise company, alongside Bravado (a division of
Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
). Notable brand releases include clothing made to be worn while surfing the internet, Arcangel's ''The Source''
zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...
series, and a first-time publishing of
Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both d ...
's
Music and the Mind of the World
' online. After ending the brand's relationship with Bravado and shutting down its webstore, Arcangel opened a flagship shop in
Stavanger, Norway Stavanger (, , US usually , ) is a city and municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the administrative center of Rogaland county. Th ...
that was in operation from 2018–2019.


''Lake'' series

In 2013 and 2014 Arcangel exhibited a series of 1920X1080 H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 looped digital file from lossless Quicktime Animation master. The pieces are displayed on 70" flat screens using a media player. Pop culture images have had the outdated Java applet "lake" applied, creating the series of film images.


''Photoshop Gradient Demonstrations''

Arcangel's series of ''Photoshop Gradient Demonstrations'' are large, colorful prints produced using the gradient tool built into the image-processing software
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
. The title of each of these works describes the process by which it was made. For example, one 2008 work is titled ''Photoshop CS: 110 by 72 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient "Spectrum", mousedown y=1098 x=1749.9, mouse up y=0 x=4160''. With these instructions, any Photoshop user can reproduce Arcangel's abstract images on their own computer.


''Various Self Playing Bowling Games (aka Beat the Champ)''

Arcangel created ''Various Self Playing Bowling Games (aka Beat the Champ)'' (2011) by hacking various
bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...
video games (for game consoles from Atari 2600 to Nintendo GameCube) to throw gutter balls. Arcangel says, "But throwing a gutter ball is just humiliating. That's what makes the piece so ridiculous, but also sad and even oppressive. The failure seems funny at first–then it flips." Art critic Charles Darwent from ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' described the work as "complex and funny and moving." Andrea K. Scott of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' compared the piece to Bruce Nauman's "Stamping in the Studio", where he stamped in an empty room for an hour, as "a ritual of isolation and futility".


''The AUDMCRS Underground Dance Music Collection of Recorded Sound''

Arcangel, with the help of specialists, assembled a collection of 839 trance LPs and a corresponding catalogue in Machine Readable Cataloging standard (2012). The vinyl was originally purchased from retired trance and underground dance music disc jockey Joshua Ryan and cataloged over 2011 and 2012 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn by the Cory Arcangel fine arts studio. These records were only intended to be used whilst DJing and not listened to in a stand-alone format. Because of this, the work preserves the music featured in it by making it so far removed from its original context and purpose.


''Asymmetrical Response''

In military parlance, the terms asymmetrical and symmetrical are employed to refer to political provocations and diplomatic démarches, escalation and tension, and power dynamics of the highest order. Not specific to war, these terms also refer more generally to a set of relations that define our connections to power. In their first collaboration, Arcangel and
Olia Lialina Linguistic categories include * Lexical category, a part of speech such as ''noun'', ''preposition'', etc. * Syntactic category, a similar concept which can also include phrasal categories * Grammatical category, a grammatical feature such as ''t ...
present complex bodies of work that arose through their continuing conversation.


Exhibitions

Arcangel's work has appeared in several museum exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Migros Museum in Zurich,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, and exhibitions in the
Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...
in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and the
Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...
in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. His work has also been exhibited in many places in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, including the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
's Color Chart, the Whitney Museum, and the New Museum. His work is included in public collections in locations such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Miami Art Museum, Migros Museum, and
Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its ...
. Arcangel is represented by Greene Naftali Gallery in New York, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...
,
Lisson Gallery Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with locations in London and New York, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents over 50 artists such as Art & Language, Ryan Gander, Carmen Herrera, Richard Long, John Latham, Sol ...
in London, and Galerie Guy Bartschi in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
. At 33, Arcangel was the youngest artist to receive an entire floor for new work with ''Pro Tools'', his 2011 solo show at the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
. Other notable solo shows since have been "Power Points" (2013) and "Masters" (2012). Many of his shows include a variety of old and new work from Arcangel. Arcangel was an Eyebeam resident from 2002 to 2006.


Personal life

Arcangel lives and works in
Stavanger, Norway Stavanger (, , US usually , ) is a city and municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the administrative center of Rogaland county. Th ...
, where he moved in 2015. He also maintains a studio in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Arcangel is married to Hanne Mugaas, a Norwegian
curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
; together, they have one child. In 2009, Arcangel was diagnosed with
thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck. C ...
and his treatments gave him both concentration and memory issues, completely wiping out his
short-term memory Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recit ...
for a period of time. It also temporarily affected his work, leading him to create works that he described as "hyper-structuralist" or void of "real content". His
lymph nodes A lymph node, or lymph gland, is a kidney-shaped organ of the lymphatic system and the adaptive immune system. A large number of lymph nodes are linked throughout the body by the lymphatic vessels. They are major sites of lymphocytes that includ ...
were removed, freeing him of the disease.


References


External links


Cory's home pageTeam Gallery
at Electronic Arts Intermix
Lecture given by Arcangel at Columbia UniversityCory Arcangel on Tinkering and doing Stuff
in interview with Arcangel from August 2007
Legacy Hackster
An interview with Cory Arcangel in ''Petitemort'', issue 1, story #2, 2003
Interview in SwitchArticle in Forbes
at Electronic Arts Intermix {{DEFAULTSORT:Arcangel, Cory 1978 births Living people American digital artists New media artists American sound artists Robotic art Artists from Buffalo, New York Oberlin Conservatory of Music alumni Pupils of Pauline Oliveros 21st-century American male artists Post-conceptual artists