Game World
For this installation, Cory Arcangel hacked into an old Super Mario Brothers video game and altered it by removing the characters, the scenery, and the sound, so there is nothing left except the sky and the clouds that scroll across it. To make the artwork, Arcangel used the same 1985 version of the game that he had played as a kid.
Imagine a game world of your own. Would your game include a background? Objects? Characters? Find a piece of graph paper or draw your own with a ruler. Choose three things in your game, such as the background scene, an object, and a character. Treat the squares of the graph paper like pixels and use colored pencils or markers to design your game and fill each square with a solid color.
See all Whitney Kids Art Challenges.
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds, 2002. Handmade hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 2005.10. © Cory Arcangel. Courtesy the artist and Team Gallery, New York
