thinkingblueskyagain


HOME THINKING BLUE SKY SKIES WHAT IS UP THERE? WHERE HAVE ALL THE GODS GONE? HOW TO TAME THE SKY? CORY ARCANGEL LISE AUTOGENA GASTON BACHELARD JAMES BENNING CORREGGIO GILLES DELEUZE SIMON FAITHFULL CAMILLE FLAMMARION WERNER HERZOG DEREK JARMAN GERHARD RICHTER JACQUES TATI JOELLE TUERLINCKX RICHARD WILSON PETER WEIR QUADRATURA WHAT OF OUR PLANETARY SKY? ABOUT REFERENCES	CORY ARCANGEL A neuromantic sky In 2002 Cory Arcangel hacked into a Super Mario Bros. Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge stripping out all the programming with the exception of the clouds, the blue-sky background and the soundtrack. Super Mario Clouds runs in play mode but without ‘action’. There are no characters and no points to be scored, just clouds moving across a blue background. Is this the version of heaven where nothing ever happens? The first time I saw Super Mario Clouds I laughed out loud. I felt that Arcangel was challenging his audience to connect with this stripped-down cartoon arcadia in the same way we might the swirling mists of Caspar David Friedrich or the enveloping atmosphere of J.M.W. Turner. In doing so he was laying bare the social construct of landscape which, as cultural historian Kate Soper argues, is less something “out there to be toiled and trampled over” and more an idea in “the minds of those who see it and interpret it… and endow it with associations, symbolic connections and metaphorical meanings that are of their own invention” (Soper, 1995). I believed that Cory Arcangel was unpicking this ideal Nature by challenging us to make empathetic connections with his Super Mario skyscape. Upon discussing Super Mario Clouds with the artist, his response took me by surprise. He explained that growing up in New York in the late 1980s, the Nintendo landscapes were his outside world. These games were his escape, his window to an elsewhere. The artist did not intend Super Mario Clouds as an ironic gesture or a post-modern deconstruction of ‘naturalness’ but, by way of steam-punk hack-tactics, it was intended to evoke a sentimental or empathetic connection with a virtual ‘neuromantic’ landscape. As the twenty-first century progresses and we spend more and more time in virtual environments, we need to pay attention to the landscapes that shape and colour these worlds. These digital image are ever present in our lives and as such they impact upon our thoughts. Their colours penetrate our dreams. Art works such as Super Mario Clouds remind us of this fact. From an interview with Cory Arcangel at the Evolution Conference, Leeds, 2003.	Images (top to bottom): Cory Arcangel. 'Super Mario Clouds' (still). 2002 - Handmade hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. Dimensions variable © Cory Arcangel. Image Courtesy of Cory Arcangel; Cory Arcangel. 'Super Mario Clouds' 2002 - . (Installation view, The New York/Liverpool Project, The Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 2004; Photo: Duncan Hamilton). Handmade hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. Dimensions variable © Cory Arcangel. Image courtesy of Cory Arcangel; still of 'Cosmos' screensaver