Cory Archangel “Our Renditions of Reality: With ProTools”

Humanity has succumbed to a technological realm that has shaped contemporary life. New media has diverged to the point where old media has become obsolete. The interactive audience has become absorbed in expressing themselves. Cory Arcangel experiments with the digital medium and it’s impact on our culture in his 2011 exhibition, Pro Tools, featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ultimately, Arcangel explores the disconnect in the users relationship with technology regarding expectations, as well as reliability. 

            The most prominent work in the show is “Various Self Playing Bowling Games (aka Beat the Champ),” which engages the viewer from the moment the elevator doors open. The room is transformed into a bowling alley with projections from a 1977 Atari to a 2001 Nintendo GameCube. Archangel worked with an engineer to construct a chip that was attached to the controllers. “Video game Tivo,”as they call it, recorded his actions and replayed them for the viewer, allowing only gutter balls in play. These life size pieces become an extension of our world through realism and three dimensionality. Our culture’s expectations in technology are frustrated which is mirrored in the avatars reactions, as the games advance from system to system, still resulting in failure and limiting our interactions. The artist intentionally plays with our dependency on typically functioning technology as well as our yearn for success in sports, as well as anything we do.

Another of Archangel’s pieces, “Masters,” allows the viewers to digitally play golf, bemusing us once again. If the player is in fact Tiger Woods himself, the ball will never successfully reach the hole. Although using a similar technique to the bowling game, Archangel has now crippled our physical experience through the technological limitations he has created.

The works in “Pro Tools,” tend to show practicing, composing and remixing; however, the odd ball of the bunch, “Volume Management” presents technology, as we’d see it in a store, excluding artistic significance. It boldly stands out among the pieces, and creates a conversation between consumer’s and Archangel’s perceptions of technology. What is the point of the boxed flat screens? Well, it depends on the extent of your imagination. With the deprivation of the screen, the content becomes undermined by the idea or theory behind it. The frame becomes superior to the power of the screen, commenting on mass consumption, through which flat screens have lost their aura in our culture. No longer does a large flat screen hold our eye for more than a moment, unless we are entranced by the artwork shown on the vehicle. The flat screen has moved to obsolesce just as other popular technology has.         

Cory Arcangel plays with the, “absurdity of technology’s lifecycle,” within our culture. These product demonstrations not only help us to understand technology’s place in our everyday lives, but also show how both professionals and amateurs make use of them. Arcangel has created a commentary on technology itself, claiming that technology is on a redundant road to nowhere, where eventually all fads become stale.  However, his main focus is on, “ ‘the human factor’- the way we express ourselves through technological tools and platforms.”  The importance isn’t in the rise and demise of the technology’s superiority over us, from our first introduction to our growing familiar relationship with it; it’s how we make use of, “Pro Tools” as individuals and as a culture. The use of different technologies blurs the lines between pop culture consumerism and fine art. These DIY products allow minor to major alterations that create an opportunity for self-expression in our culture. Arcangel recently told an interviewer,

“The Internet makes it very hard to keep ahead, the question of who ‘did’ something is moot. It’s just guaranteed that some kid somewhere has executed any idea you have. I mean, where is art left when everyone is a producer?”