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Cory Arcangel (born 1978) is a digital artist, musician and performer based in Brooklyn. His work spans mediums such as video, photography, and sculpture, and concerns itself with the relationship between technology and culture, making use of media in many cases. Arcangel is best known for his video game hacks. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Migros Museum in Zurich, the Barbican Center in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. |
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Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools Review
Anatole Ashraf
Cory Arcangel, Various Self Playing Bowling Games (aka Beat the Champ), 2011. Hacked video game controllers, game consoles, cartridges, disks, and video, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Whitney Museum .
Cory Arcangel (born 1978) is a digital artist, musician and performer based in Brooklyn. His work spans mediums such as video, photography, and sculpture, and concerns itself with the relationship between technology and culture, making use of media in many cases. Arcangel is best known for his video game hacks. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Migros Museum in Zurich, the Barbican Center in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
“Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools” is the artist’s current exhibition now on view through September 11 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, located at 945 Madison Ave at 75th St. The exhibition–named after the popular audio software–aims to emphasize “the combination of professional and amateur technologies as well as the vernaculars these technologies encourage within the culture at large.” The collection of new works spans various mediums, including video games, single channel video, kinetic sculpture, prints and pen plotter drawings. The viewer is invited to a barrage of information and a multitude of lights, sounds, colors and visuals, and as a result, there is something for almost every interest. Research in Motion (Kinetic Sculpture #4) (2011), for example, is a set of silver tables modified with custom electronics and locked in a dance of technology that makes the inanimate come alive. At the same time, Since U Been Gone (2011), a set of fourteen screenprints and metallic foil, and the video There’s Always One at Every Party (2010) compel fans of Kelly Clarkson and Seinfeld, respectively, to re-examine the cultural implications of these celebrities’ works. The main attraction, however, is Various Self Playing Bowling Games (aka Beat the Champ) (2011), a haunting statement on the nature of obsolescence. As each digital player throws an increasingly dramatic gutter ball from game system to game system, Arcangel reminds us of our own complicated relationship to technology. Eventually it starts to dawn on the viewer that the obsolescence being alluded to may also be humanity’s own.
