Paul Catanese: “Virtual Artist’s Books” for the Gameboy Advance (GBA)
July 2004
Paul Catanese: “Virtual Artist’s Books” for the Gameboy Advance (GBA)
“Virtual Artist’s Books” for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) previewed Paul Catanese’s body of work exploring Nintendo’s Gameboy Advance device as a means for artistic expression and storytelling. The Gate Page features an image of a GBA with a simulated screen that plays two short black-and-white video loops, navigable by pressing the device’s A or B buttons. The work links to information about two of Catanese’s projects: Super Ichthyologist Advance (2003), which turned the Gameboy into a virtual repository for koi fish, trapped in the small “tank” of the device’s window; and Invisible Maps (2001), which explored how the markers, signs, and roadways one follows while traveling become a series of letters, then words, and ultimately a form of narration. Catanese’s Gate Page provides a portal into his practice of appropriating technology, such as the Gameboy, to rethink its use and create hybrid forms outside the device’s aesthetic and cultural baggage.
Paul Catanese (b. 1975; Huntington, New York) works in installation, performance, sound, video, and print, among other mediums. His artwork has been exhibited at festivals and venues including Stuttgarter Filmwinter; Ann Arbor Film Festival; and ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art); Chicago Cultural Center; the New Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; La Villette, Paris; China Academy of Art, Hangzhou; and Frankston Arts Centre, Australia. Catanese was awarded an Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship by the Central Indiana Community Foundation (2014), named the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Artist in Residence at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York (2018–19); and awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Poland (2024) to research the intersection of artificial intelligence and print media. He authored Director’s Third Dimension (2001) and coauthored Post-Digital Printmaking (2012). Catanese is a professor of art and art History at Columbia College, Chicago.
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.