Cory Arcangel: Untitled
May 2002
Cory Arcangel: Untitled
Cory Arcangel’s Gate Page takes the form of a banner ad, the rectangular online graphic advertisement embedded into webpages that became popular with the launch of the Web in the early 1990s. Mimicking the language of a slick fashion or lifestyle ad and featuring a model in a high rise, the Gate Page links to a few of Arcangel’s iconic projects: Beige Records, the programming ensemble and record label he started in 1997 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with collaborators; the computer game I Shot Andy Warhol (2002); and Urbandale (2001), a film shot at Urbandale Plaza in Buffalo, NY, that strips suburban sprawl to its essentials and renders it in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text. The inscription “Watch your data” on the Gate Page is a specific reference to the art collective RSG’s (Radical Software Group; Alex Galloway and collaborators) Carnivore (launched 2001), a packet sniffing application named after the FBI’s infamous wiretapping software, that ran on a local network and allowed artists to create clients that interpreted the network data as visualizations or interactive installations.
Cory Arcangel (b. 1978; Buffalo, New York) is an American post-conceptual artist who makes work in many different mediums, including drawing, music, video, performance art, and video game modifications (for which he is best known). Arcangel often uses the artistic strategy of appropriation, creatively reusing existing materials such as dancing stands, Photoshop gradients, and YouTube videos to create new works of art. His work explores the relationship between digital technology and pop culture. He is a recipient of a 2006 Creative Capital Emerging Fields Award and the 2015 Kino der Kunst Award for Filmic Oeuvre. Arcangel lives in Stavanger, Norway. Several of his works are in the collection of the Whitney Museum, and his solo exhibition Pro Tools was shown at the museum in 2011. He was also included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies 1965–2018 (2018–19).
Gate Pages
Every month from March 2001 to February 2006, the Whitney invited an artist or collective to present their work in the form of a “Gate Page” on artport. Each page was meant to function as a portal to the artist’s own sites and projects. The Gate Pages comprise a range of artistic approaches to the format—while some of them are designed as entry points to the respective artist’s website or promote a recently launched work, others take the form of a more complex stand-alone project.
Wherever necessary and possible, these works are made functional through emulation and reconstructions from the Internet Archive. Not all of them have been restored to their original state and their conservation is ongoing. You can also view the original Gate Pages archive to see how they were presented at the time of their creation.
artport
View more on artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet and new media art.
