Cory Arcangel (Web Lecture Review)

I was very happy to see that there was a web lecture given by Cory Arcangel. Since starting in the digita media program, I've wanted to hear Arcangel talk about his work and this was a great way to experience it.

I was really impressed with the Beige Records project of the Commodore 64 / Atari vinyl record with various sounds for DJs with some just being things to scratch over, basic clips, and one track to play through like a normal album. Arcangel's details in the grooves was interesting in how they differed from normal or even concentric grooves and that there was something etched in where it pulls all the data off the vinyl and can work on a computer. That's crazy and very interesting.

"I Shot Andy Warhol" was a funny Nintendo game hack that Arcangel did where he made his own characters and put them into the original game, "Hogan's Alley." It was a basic and easy thing to do for Arcangel because he just put in his own characters of pixel art into an existing game.

Much of Arcangel's work is centered around him exploring coding and programming and tweaking as little data as possible. Some call it lazy, which I may tend to agree with except for the fact that it's so funny and asinine, but Arcangel actually knows what he's doing and could do any project from scratch but he explores what has already been done. "Super Mario Clouds" is probably his most famous of these Nintendo graphics hacks, which I saw in person this summer at the Whitney in New York, but it shows what a minimal approach he takes with games of this nature. Arcangel's Tetris hack where he slowed down the time for everything was funny and extremely easy but something about it is so charmingly stupid, much like a lot of Arcangel's work. But, it's fascinating and should be appreciated for the fact that it's software exploration.

The final most interesting part about Arcangel's online lecture was his Pizza Party program that runs on the terminal and pulls data from Domino's's website and you can order pizza through it. The program is a basic text format and because it's cash on delivery, Arcangel took a hands-off approach on the ramifications his program could cause. I also like that Arcangel posts all his coding work so people can appropriate his work like he does of others. It's a great sign of transparency in his work and makes getting into the digital media field more enjoyable so people can have a hands-on approach to learning the software and how to manipulate it.

Arcangel is obviously funny and hip to modern times and his lecture was like something a brilliant student may give, not someone whose work is world-renowned in the biggest and best galleries. He's like the laid back artist that the youths wish were famous making funny, interesting, and intelligent art. I was happy to see that he wasn't as egotistical as other digital media artists and he's just a seemingly cool guy who likes making fun stuff for the sole enjoyment of himself.