Cory Arcangel
Max Wigram Gallery, Ridley Road, London, UK
New York artist Cory Arcangel infuses a technological preoccupation with the new with an inherent sense of the obsolete. What results is an offhand sense of the lyrical; while Arcangel’s work is not without complexity, it retains a thoroughly light touch.
Arcangel is perhaps best known for his hacked computer games: Super Slow Tetris (2004), which does precisely what its title proposes, and Super Mario Clouds (2002), a work which spirits away all but the titular clouds. But Arcangel’s preoccupation with popular culture is increasingly the means by which he is able to explore the more fruitful territory of structure, form, and (above all) medium.
Arcangel conceives of a post-McLuhan world in which the medium is not simply the message; instead, the medium – and thus, presumably, the message – is always already obsolete. Some kind of loss - not only technological, but one finer and more sensitively attuned - is inscribed into his work, which is in some ways simply trying to document that newfound absence.
Structural Film (2007) is disarmingly simple: using the Apple iMovie programme, Arcangel created a digital film which was then transferred to 16mm film. In the process, the file corrupted, resulting in digital pixilation and a lovely conflation of digital and analogue, intended and unintended. Plasma Screen Burn (2007) is similarly simple in its conception: a single image - a text relating the title and details of the work - plays on a plasma screen, quickly burning into the surface and resulting in a distinctly sculptural work.
Both Structural Film and Plasma Screen Burn are located in the niches where technology breaks down, in mechanical and programming flaws. They are works that give those points of collapse a distinctly material - and not simply digital - life. What is perhaps distinct to Arcangel is the manner in which he highlights these spaces with humor and a genuine sense of the lyrical.
Sweet 16 (2006), perhaps the centerpiece of the show, is another work that focuses on gaps and cuts. It features a double projection of a clip from a Guns N’ Roses video, one of which has been shortened by a single beat. The clips begin playing in synchronicity, then grow further and further apart until the work begins to resemble nothing so much as a musical canon. It’s a lovely piece, and like much of Arcangel’s work, coaxes a simple magic out of the most basic of means.
Katie Kitamura
Responses
There are no responses yet for this article.
