The Media Art Institute proudly presents the first solo exhibition in The Netherlands by the 31-year-old 'darling of new media art', Cory Arcangel (US). Recent films, modified video games and computer installations by the artist will be shown in the context of earlier work.

Cory Arcangel hacks, manipulates and reuses various technological applications, including video games, web software, film and print media. In doing so he comments on digital media technologies and cultures while at the same time continuing to seek the possibilities that present themselves on the cutting edge of humor, theory and technological shortcomings. His interest in technology spans from the vernacular or non-expert to the conscious disrupting of digital techniques. Using techniques common to conceptual art and performance, Arcangel's work often comments on the relationship between these two.

The Netherlands Media Arts Institute is showing Arcangel's best known work, 'Super Mario Clouds' (2002-). The artist altered a version of the Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers in such a way that only an iconic, bright blue sky with clouds slowly drifting by remained. For the work 'Structural Film' (2007) Arcangel used the medium of film, which has been around a much longer time. In this work the iMovie filter that imitates dust and scratches from a time-worn film, called 'Aged Film', was applied to a blank image. Arcangel then transferred the resulting quicktime film to 16 mm film, so that the work becomes a contemporary pastiche of Nam June Paik's 'Zen for Film'.

Arcangel's video installation 'Sweet 16' (2006), which by now could almost be called a classic, will also be presented. In this work two intros to the Guns N' Roses video clip 'Sweet Child O' Mine' sometimes run synchronously, and are sometimes totally out of sync. That is because the two videos' lengths are off by one note. The artist's love of music also emerges in his latest work 'Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11' (2009). In this video Arcangel brings together short YouTube fragments of cats walking on pianos. The artist edited all the separate fragments one note at a time, so that the cats collectively play Schönberg's 'Op. 11', a pioneering work of 'atonal' music