# Digital Media Concepts/Cory Arcangel
## Early Life and Education

Cory Arcangel was born on May 25, 1978 and is an idol for the digital art movement. He lives as a Brooklyn, New York digital artist and works with all type of medias. He is best known for working with video game modifications as a digital artist, while also working with the range of medium in drawing, music, video, and performance art. Arcangel's best known artworks include his Photoshop Gradient Demonstrations, Super Mario Clouds (2002), and Drei Klavierstücke op.11 (2009), a version of Arnold Schönberg’s 1909. He uses the crossroads of technology and culture to help create his art by shaping and manipulating it into his art making. Arcangel grew up in Buffalo, New York where he attended the Nichols School. He then studied classical guitar at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music due to the interest he found at video artists such as Nam June Paik through the Squeaky Wheel Buffalo Media Arts Center. He then later switched to major in the technology of music, graduating in 2000. During his attendance at Oberlin, he released a record of 8-bit music entitled "The 8-Bit Construction Set".

## Artworks

Super Mario Clouds Super Mario Clouds was where Cory Arcangel took a Super Mario Bros. Cartridge and he ended up erasing and taking away everything from the game except leaving the clouds and the blue sky. You were able to scroll slowly through this Modified Version of Super Mario Bros and only see the sky and clouds. This was one of the things Arcangel was known for and one of his best works.
I Shot Andy Warhol Another one of Arcangel's famous works was I Shot Andy Warhol, he took the original game, Modified NES Hogans Alley, and modified it to where he took out all the gangsters and was replaced by Warhol. The innocents was replaced by the Pope, Flavor Flav, and Col Sanders. It's a playable video game for everyone and Arcangel allows for all ages to play and experience different ways technology can be engaged through people.
Super Slow Tetris (2004) Tetris Screwed was another game Arcangel had modified and renamed it to Super Slow Tetris. One full game takes 8 hours to complete in order for the the blocks to fall. However you can still move the blocks around during the slow time period. The game allows a few minutes just for one pixel to fall down on the screen. Interaction was the theme and the idea behind this game and Arcangel made it so many NES nerds can experience it.

## Personal Life

Arcangel is now married to Hanne Mugaas, a Norwegian curator. He was then sadly diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer and received treatments and memory issues. His treatment has resulted into him having trouble with memory loss as well as concentration, which will eventually wipe out his short term memory loss for certain amount of time. It had affected his work, leading him to create works that he described as "hyper-structuralist" or void of "real content". The cancer returned in 2009, and his lymph nodes were removed, freeing him of the disease. He is now able to go back and create art work like he used too.

## Exhibitions

Arcangel's artwork has made many appearances in many museum exhibitions. Like the Migros Museum in Zurich, Switzerland, and exhibitions in the Barbican Centre in London, England. Another appearance was made in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois. All over New York City has many of his artworks as well, including the Museum of Modern Art's Color Chart, the Whitney Museum, and the New Museum. At the age of 33, Arcangel was the youngest artist ever to receive an entire floor for new work with Pro Tools, his 2011 solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.