Installation view of Cory Arcangel, ‘Beat the Champ’ via Artdaily
Currently on view at London’s Barbican Gallery is “Beat the Champ” by Brooklyn-based Cory Arcangel, known for diverse and innovative work using DIY low-fi tech materials. Cory’s recent project for The Curve, a co-commission with the Whitney Museum of Art is an installation featuring 14 bowling video games from the 1970s to the 2000s. The artist has used custom-made electronics in order to hack each unit to play a loop game whereby the bowler fails to score.
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
More text and images after the jump…
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
The games are presented chronologically and create a “collage of sound” incorporating various popular video games over the last few decades such as Atari, Nintendo, and Playstation. The video game consoles are displayed as well with just a small computer chip attached so that the viewer witnesses a great flickering of light once they walk into the gallery space. “It sounds like a noisy arcade and looks, at first, like a potted history of tenpin bowling video games but there is, perhaps something more existential going on…” wrote Mark Brown in The Guardian.
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
Cory’s work often manipulates and appropriates new media including video games, the internet, and computer software into his work. His work has appeared in many museum exhibitions and private galleries worldwide including solo shows at the MOMA, the 2004 Whitney Biennale, and the Migros Museum in Zurich.
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery
-R.A. Proctor
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Barbican Gallery]
Barbican Gallery Presents Brooklyn-Based Cory Arcangel’s “Beat the Champ” [Artdaily]
Cory Arcangel, Barbican, London [The Independent]
Barbican bowled over by artist’s game-installation [The Guardian]
The Curve: Cory Arcangel [The Art Newspaper]
