Cory Arcangel

on borrowing musician’s

strategies, humor and

his Arcangel Surfware line.

In conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Photography by David Brandon Geeting

2726

WA X I S S U E 5 I — R E S P O N S E

Hans Ulrich Obrist: This conversation is not going to be about a normal art show.

Cory Arcangel: Right. I’m launching a new line of merchandise that’s called Arcangel Surfware. It’s not exactly happening at a normal art loca-tion, either. It’s unfolding over the course of one day — May 17th — in a Holiday Inn conference room in Chinatown.

HUO: Can you describe the line?

CA: It’s all different things: magazines, records, t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, iPhone covers, iPad covers, magazines, bed linens and a vinyl record of new piano compositions that I wrote. It’s designed for people who surf their computers in bed all day, like me.

HUO: Gilbert and George often refer to this idea of art for all. Your merchandising idea strikes me as similar; it creates plat-forms and support structures that make your work accessible and easier to dissemi-nate. It’s a different kind of market from the rarefied limited edition art object. Do you envisage your project this way?

CA: Well, my first substantial experiences as an artist — in the late 90s and early 00s — were just pull-ing things from online. True blue net.art was my first medium. This idea, that anybody could see the work, formed my identity as an artist.

HUO: There’s a long tradition artists doing shops, and creating interesting

relationships to branding. Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin did a legendary DIY in London in the 90s, for instance. How you explore these different circuits of dissemination? Do you see your project as being connected to this kind of tradition of artist shop and the unlimited object?

CA: Artist’s shops are absolutely an influence. When I first moved to New York, Keith Haring’s shop — the Pop Shop — was still around. Though in a lot of ways I am appropriating musician’s strategies more than anything else. The company that I’m working with on the project is called Bravado; they’re the merchan-dise arm of Universal Music. They do merchandise for, like, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry. They also help musicians start their own lifestyle brands. Lil Wayne, for instance, does his own line of skater wear with them. I wanted to do a line centered on my own interest: surfing the Internet. I’m the first artist that they are working with. It is an experiment on both ends.

HUO: That musical influence makes sense; you studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

CA: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always borrowed strate-gies from musicians, including how I present myself online. Rather than have a straight portfolio on a website, I have running news and social network links, as might a band.

HUO: Simon Castets and I are doing this research for 89plus, a long-term, interna-tional, multi-platform research project that

This is my second conversation with Cory Arcangel (the first was at the Wired conference where Cory was presenting as a game inventor). This time around, the occasion for our talk was the launch of his new brand, Arcangel Surfware, which will sell everything from zines to iPad cases. It’s a project inscribed in a long history of artists inventing new market strategies and pioneering their own brands, DIY and oth-erwise. It’s a dynamic history that continues to evolve, particularly in the generation of artists that grew up with, and around, the Internet (Simon Castets and I co-founded 89plus as a platform for this same set). As Arcangel’s Surfware brand continues to evolve, the terms of democratic art dissemination and alternative marketing will certainly blend in interesting ways.

2928

WA X I S S U E 5 S U M M E R 2 0 1 4I — R E S P O N S E C O RY A R C A N G E L

maps the generation of artists born in ‘89 and after. These are the children of the Internet; their realities are not fixed and singular but parallel and expansive. In my generation, one had to be an original artist or a curator or musician, etc. Now these roles coexist. That is something that you’ve pioneered quite early, in the late 90s. In ‘98 you were part of a programming col-lective and an original artist.

CA: I came to art backwards, you know? I have a certain set of interests that have been relatively stable since I was a teenager, like music, composition, humor, whatever. And when I kind of was coming of age as a creative person in the world in my mid-20s, I had to kind of take stock of all those things.

HUO: And you have also mentioned the idea of doing sitcoms. How do you get on with that?

CA: I’m looking to do webisodes more than sitcoms. I started one called Solitaire Weekly; it’s a weekly web show where I just screen-captured somebody playing computer solitaire. And I did that for fifty-two consecutive weeks, starting in 2012 and ending in 2013. The work doesn’t really have a center, which is what I like about it. I like to get to a point where every work that I do is completely far apart from the previous work — in terms of its medium, its distribu-tion strategy, the history it references. I just want to kind of blow it all apart.

HUO: Are you developing your new brand with this project or is it a parody on branding?

CA: Arcangel Surfware a big experiment. Part of the goal is to really create a brand, the same way that Lil Wayne would. I used to read these interviews with hip hop guys talking about starting their cloth-ing companies; it seemed so abstract to me. Now that I’m two and a half years into the process, I’ve learned a lot and it’s informing all the way that I see everything. So, it’s quite serious. It’s not a parody of a brand. I’m trying to do a real thing.

HUO: As part of the brand you’re going to make fanzines that feature your program-ming codes. Can you describe how these are going to operate? Are they going to be

an inventory of your code? Are they visual rearrangements, or are they artist books?

CA: The first section of each fanzine — which is titled The Source — is just the computer source code for one of my works, completely straight. In the back of each are footnotes, which are my own words or images. The product ends up being a combination between an artist book and a computer manual. I think in the end there’ll be about thirty of them. And eventually I’ll put them all together and make one big book of it all. And I’m doing it all in-house in this 1970s computer typesetting language called TeX, which is a command line computer typesetting language. It’s mainly used for military or research papers.

HUO: Are you interested in exploring another kind of economy outside of art? How, if at all, is that interest informed by your past work?

CA: Yes. About ten years ago I had a web store on my website that I ran myself. I’d go to the post office once a week, sell records and silkscreens. I’ve always wanted to reengage with that fan base, outside of the art economy. You know, I’ve spent fifteen years making quite a bit of digital work; it’s kind of crushing me in a weird way. I feel like maybe I can’t go on making that kind of work. What I need to do is I need to properly archive that work and spread it around the globe so I can move on to something else.

HUO: Will there be a catalog of these objects then? Or is it all online?

CA: It’ll be online too. The website will launch on the same day as the shop, and it will be a catalog and you’ll be able to buy them all, or any one you want. Bravado, the company behind all this, will ship them out. It’s not an accident — I always want my work to be accessible. I always think of “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys; Brian Wilson is a really good example of somebody who was able to slip insanely radical ideas into pop songs. “Good Vibrations” has, towards the end, a couple seconds of just total silence in the middle of the song, which is just crazy. The silence in “Good Vibrations” rep-resents the same kind of idea. It is possible, but very tricky. He is one of America’s greatest living composers, and an inspiration here.

3130

WA X I S S U E 5 S U M M E R 2 0 1 4I — R E S P O N S E C O RY A R C A N G E L

HUO: You mentioned earlier that comedy also strikes you as experimental and accessible.

CA: I recently saw the comedian Zach Galifianakis perform live. I’ve never seen anything that wild and that funny. It made my head spin off. The edges of comedy can be so absurd and yet so immediately accessible. It is such a physical thing.

HUO: I’m now going to commence the part of the interview where I ask you a series of short questions. What is your biggest work and what is your smallest work?

CA: My biggest work is probably my personal web-site, which is certainly my longest running artwork. And my smallest work...just off the top of my head,

I have a work where I just throw some Tic Tacs under the front seat of a luxury automobile. I think that might be the quietest work that I’m most proud of.

HUO: That’s beautiful. Is it documented?

CA: I do have a picture, under the front seat of a Mercedes.

HUO: And the website is interesting also because it’s not that you entered the art world as a visual artist, then developed the website to promote or show your work. You went the other way around.

CA: My website is still very important to me. I’m always changing it because I constantly changing how I want to project myself.

3332

WA X I S S U E 5 S U M M E R 2 0 1 4I — R E S P O N S E C O RY A R C A N G E L

HUO: Dan Graham once said we can only understand an artist, if you also understand, or know what kind of music he or she is listening to. What kind of music you are listening to at the moment?

CA: I’ve been spending a lot of time in Norway recently, so I’ve been listening to this Norwegian pop star named Truls. Also, I’m listening to Poison, the late 80s glam rock band from LA, and Robert Ashley because he’s been in everybody’s minds lately, since he passed.

HUO: Yeah he’s in my book, The Brief History of Sound. It’s all my composer interviews, Xenakis and Stockhausen and Robert Ashley.

CA: When I saw Perfect Lives in college, I couldn’t understand how one person could dream it up. It’s just so overwhelming.

HUO: What is your new work created today or yesterday?

CA: Yesterday I decided that on my artist CV I would add my skills, like my computer skills. I listed Microsoft Word and all the different computer pro-grams I know. I also listed what television shows I’ve been watching lately. So I think that’s my most recent artwork: a very quiet intervention into my own CV.

HUO: What is a project that you haven’t dared do?

CA: One of these days I’d love to be able to make a great painting. I’ve tried painting many times, but I’ve never been able to do it.

HUO: There have been a lot of discussions about your name. Is it your given name? There is a long tradition of Avant Garde artists using pseudonyms. You’ve said it comes from the Italian name D’Arcangelo. That is also the name of a conceptual artist, Christopher D’Arcangelo, interestingly enough, from the 70s. Is he a relative? An inspiration?

CA: Yes, it is my real name, and the family name does come from D’Arcangelo. And, yeah, Christopher is

a distant relative of mine, as well as his father Allan D’Arcangelo, who was also a really great artist. Both have been inspirations. And yes, I do have pseudonyms.

HUO: Could you tell me one?

CA: I’m not so sure if they should be public.

HUO: Rainer Maria Rilke wrote this lovely little book that is advice to a young poet. What would in 2014 be your advice to a young artist who reads our interview? An art student, perhaps?

CA: Probably not to read the interview.

HUO: Right. There could not be a better conclusion.

3534

WA X I S S U E 5 S U M M E R 2 0 1 4I — R E S P O N S E C O RY A R C A N G E L

3736

WA X I S S U E 5 S U M M E R 2 0 1 4I — R E S P O N S E C O RY A R C A N G E L