|
a t a r i - n o i s e 1999-2015 "Atari 2600 "VideoComputerSystem" the icon of media culture hacked as an audiovisual noise pattern generator keyboard, a game info-deconstruction. |
The Atari
2600 was one of the most successful game consoles of all times.
The system, launched in 1977, was one of the first game machines for
which cartridges with new games were constantly being produced. Twenty-five
million units are believed to have been sold up to 1991. Arcangel Constantini
hacked the antiquated gaming device, that you can buy cheap today on
the flea market, and converted it into an audio-visual noise pattern
generator keyboard (Constantini). The artist thus combined several
elements of the game console in order to allow the user to generate
chaotically distorted images at the push of a button; these images have
about as much to do with the original computer gaming interface as the
sound of a guitar string has to do with one of Jimi Hendrixs feedback
solos. This deconstruction of visual raw material is not
only part of a long, modernist tradition of alienating and modifying
found images, but also alludes to one of the most seminal works of media
art: Nam June Paiks Videosynthesizer (1972). While
Paik had to hire the engineer Shuya Abe to develop a machine that allowed
you to manipulate moving images in real time, Atari Noise
reflects a media culture in which the necessary hardware is available
as electronic scrap.
from exhibition
> " games " |
![]() |
|