Whitney Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018 

1. Super Mario Clouds by Cory Arcangel

The bright sky blue captured my attention as soon as I walked into the exhibition. The white super mario clouds are displayed with black pixelated outlines, moving across the screen. It reminded me of the mario games my friends used to play on their Nintendos, and it gave me strong nostalgic feelings that made me walk closer to see what’s really going on. I stood in front of it for a solid 5 minutes, but I didn’t see any repeated pattern of the clouds. They are randomly placed and the screen is ever-changing. The whole art piece was displayed using an old bulky TV with 4:3 aspect ratio to further help transmit the nostalgic and retro feelings, and the TV is hooked to a real Nintendo console, as shown in the photo.

I learned that the piece was first released as web art oriented toward the hacker community. The game’s ROM(Read-Only Memory) was hacked digitally to create this effect, and then physically instantiated by modifying a copy of its NES cartridge. Years later, when Arcangel was asked to exhibit Super Mario Clouds as an installation in a gallery setting, he set up a multi-channel projection, with the projectors hooked up to an NES console, displaying the output from the actual cartridge. This piece represents a rare, early interaction between the disparate contexts of the art world, Web 1.0, video gaming fandom, and hacker culture. Arcangel’s code, tightly wedded to the NES’s software, takes advantage of its color palette limitations and its method of drawing on the screen using CRT scan lines. His aesthetic and conceptual decision in the creation/exhibition of the work effectively emphasized the workings of the NES console and its programming. It did not break from the original design and technology, but as a result of good replication, it raises the questions about copy right issues in necessary preservation of game culture.

1. {Software} structures by Casey Reas

This work took me awhile to notice because it took up the whole wall, and the whole color palette is muted and dark, comparing to the other pieces around it. But when I look closely at it, the figures are actually changing as time passes. The lines and dots are visible, but not too crowded or overpopulating, so it’s really comfortable to watch. I sat on the bench in front of it for awhile to observe the changes. It seems to be continually changing, erasing, and redrawing while never repeating. The darkness of the black background really made the white lines pop, and the simplicity and minimalism made it satisfying to watch.

This piece is inspired by Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings. Reas explores the relevance of conceptual art to the idea of software as art using javascript. He tries to directly address the rules and instructions used in this piece’s creation.  He created “a surface filled with 100 medium to small circles. Each has a different size and direction, but moves at the same slow rate”. And he tries to display the instantaneous intersections of the circles, as well as the aggregate intersections of the circles. The lines I see on the screen connections the intersections of overlapping circles.

Casey’s website that shows the design process and concepts behind his piece: http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/map.html

other works in the exhibition: