Overview
'Work dealing with technology didn’t start at the digital; it was just a flip-over from analogue. There’s a long history of work trying to push the boundaries of what’s happening.'
A pioneer of technology-based art, Cory Arcangel works in a wide variety of media, including music composition, video, modified video games, performance and the internet. The ease with which he uses software, hardware and internet resources as raw artistic material, placing them in new contexts, reveals a new kind of style. Arcangel's unique artistic approach is based on his training in classical guitar and his studies in music technology at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the late 1990s, which coincided with the beginning of the digital revolution and inspired him to become an artist, composer, programmer and entrepreneur.
The ageing process of technologies is always a central question in Arcangel's practice. In the mid-2000s, he became known for his method of applying archaeology to historical computer technology of the 1980s, while in recent years he has expanded his repertoire to include art materials and digital sources. In 2014, he founded a software and merchandise company under the imprint Arcangel Surfware, stocking T-shirts, sweatpants, bedsheets and iPhone cases - things needed for surfing the Internet. His first flagship store opened in Stavanger in September 2018.
A pioneer of technology-based art, Cory Arcangel works in a wide variety of media, including music composition, video, modified video games, performance and the internet. The ease with which he uses software, hardware and internet resources as raw artistic material, placing them in new contexts, reveals a new kind of style. Arcangel's unique artistic approach is based on his training in classical guitar and his studies in music technology at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the late 1990s, which coincided with the beginning of the digital revolution and inspired him to become an artist, composer, programmer and entrepreneur.
The ageing process of technologies is always a central question in Arcangel's practice. In the mid-2000s, he became known for his method of applying archaeology to historical computer technology of the 1980s, while in recent years he has expanded his repertoire to include art materials and digital sources. In 2014, he founded a software and merchandise company under the imprint Arcangel Surfware, stocking T-shirts, sweatpants, bedsheets and iPhone cases - things needed for surfing the Internet. His first flagship store opened in Stavanger in September 2018.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Arcangel lived in New York City for 15 years before moving to Stavanger, Norway. In 2004, his work was shown at the Whitney Biennial and the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art. He is the youngest artist since Bruce Nauman to hold a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 2011. The exhibition Asymmetrical Response, in collaboration with Olia Lialina, toured in 2016-17 to the art spaces Western Front, Vancouver; The Kitchen, New York, and Art Projects, Ibiza. Solo exhibitions have been held in distinguished international institutions, including the Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy (2015); Reykjavík Art Museum (2015); Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark (2014); Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal (2013); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2012); Barbican Centre, London (2011); Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2010).
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