Cory Arcangel: Super Mario Clouds
by Max Levine and Andre Barbosa
Super Mario Clouds is a 2002 piece by Cory Arcangel, a video piece where the 1985 Nintendo game Super Mario Bros was modified leaving only the backdrop of its iconic sky and clouds. A piece of scotch tape over the cartridge shows the modified cartridge’s name, and a hole in the cartridge's casing shows the modified chip. Mario Clouds was displayed as a video installation at the Whitney Museum in 2002, as a small television plugged into a wall outlet on an otherwise bare wall.
The bright colors and familiar pixel art is sure to evoke a positive response for many of its viewers, who will be able to imagine the landscapes, obstacles, and the titular protagonist that journeys through them. However, those who aren’t familiar with the game will just see a cartoonish, void sky. [8]
According to the Whitney Museum, one tenet of abstract art is the removal of elements and seeing what remains, and how much can be removed and it still be considered art [6]. Mario Clouds is partially based on nostalgia for the game, and a refusal to move on to new technologies in what is a fast-paced, constantly improving industry.
About Cory Arcangel
Cory Arcangel was born May 25th, 1978 in Buffalo New York. He studied classical guitar and found an interest in the technology behind music production. Growing up using computers and being tech savvy, regardless of what medium he uses in his final pieces, most of his work begins in front of a computer. Arcangel works in a wide range of media, including music, video, modified video games, performance, and the Internet. Arcangel is widely recognized as one of the most influential technology based artists.
Visit his website at https://linktr.ee/century2l.
Creating Super Mario Clouds
Arcangel considers computers and video game consoles as his "instruments," and often has to learn how they work, and new programming languages, before any creative exploration can occur. He will often hack, manipulate, and reuse existing technology to make something new. He will then make his methods of production available to the public, for the purpose of helping other artists find and create their own appropriations.
Arcangel is a member of the Beige Programming Ensemble, a group which embodies his ideologies of artistic hacking of technologies [8]. By exploring the nature of production and consumption of media in a technology saturated world, this led him to the creation of Super Mario Clouds.
Arcangel had to remove the graphics chip from the game cartridge and replace it with his own chip, on which was burned a program he had himself written [8]. Arcangel’s code is around 290 lines, of which a sample (lines 157-167) is shown:
load_clouds: lda [addr],y sta $2007 iny bne load_clouds txs ldx #$01 inc addr,x tsx dex bne load_clouds
These 290 lines make up the code for the entire game. (The other two chips on the cartridge contain sprite data and a security lockout mechanism preventing the cartridge from running on anything other than an official NES.) Arcangel cut down much of the rest of the code leaving only that which was needed for the clouds. The code can be burned to an EPROM chip using EPROM software and burning hardware. The chip is then soldered into the cartridge, replacing the game’s PRG chip that contains the game's original code. [9] [10]
Archival
One interesting aspect of this piece, and new media art in general, is the difficulty and nuance required for historical archival. Christiane Paul, curator of the Whitney Museum and Associate Dean of New Media at the School of Media Studies, discusses how archival practices need their own, specific attention depending on the piece.
When Paul worked with Arcangel to archive Super Mario Clouds, the original decision was that, once the original hardware malfunctioned, it should be discarded, and the process of performing the hack should be documented. Arcangel specifically did not want the work to be run on emulators, software which allow a computer to mimic other hardware, such as the NES. However, after Nintendo began to incorporate emulation into their own consoles, Arcangel changed his mind and decided emulation would be a suitable conservation approach. [7]
Bonus: Mario Party Bross
Max is a fan of Mario and is working on developing a Mario themed board game in Unity. It is based on a board game he made when he was 8. Here is a GIF of it.
Sources
[1] https://linktr.ee/century2l
[2] http://www.christianepaul.info/bio/
[3] http://www.artnet.com/artists/cory-arcangel/
[4] https://www.eai.org/artists/cory-arcangel/biography
[5] https://www.artuner.com/artists/cory-arcangel/
[6] https://whitney.org/collection/works/20588
[7] https://www.si.edu/tbma/sites/default/files/interviews/tbma-int-ocio-christianepaul_20130425.pdf
[8] http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/super-mario-cloud/
[9] https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/digital-underground/2014/making-super-mario-clouds
[10] https://github.com/coryarcangel/Super-Mario-Clouds/
Image Sources
[11] https://youtu.be/fCmAD0TwGcQ
[12] https://www.furtherfield.org/videogame-appropriation-in-contemporary-art-super-mario/
[13] https://coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/2002-001-super-mario-clouds
[14] https://whitney.org/collection/works/20588
[15] https://elephant.art/cory-arcangel-sincerity-irrelevance-the-internet/
[16] https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/digital-underground/2014/making-super-mario-clouds
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Museum_of_American_Art
[18] https://toppng.com/free-image/super-mario-bros-super-mario-bros-cloud-PNG-free-PNG-Images_176526