Paul B. Davis is obsessed with computers and makes art that helps him understand how they work. He’s a founder member of the pioneering programming ensemble BEIGE along with Cory Archangel, Joe Beuckman and Joseph Bonn.
Central to this exhibition are two large projections. Five in One, 2007 is a new Nintendo hack that takes its lead from the legacy of pirate video gaming. ‘Multicarts’ created independently by hackers often had four or five different games on one cartridge. Echoing this Davis presents five different reprogrammed Nintendo game works by the BEIGE collective on a single cartridge, questioning authorship in the already grey area of software as readymade.
The second projection represents for Davis a development of, or perhaps even an escape vector from, the NES based works. Projected on a loop are two separate works that explore what Davis describes as ‘compression aesthetics’. The first work Untitled Data Mash-up, 2007 is a new video collaboration with Jacob Ciocci from trans-media collective Paper Rad. The second work Video Compression Studies I-IV (2007) is a solo offering from Davis divided into three movements. Both works compellingly manipulate the glitches, breaks and slippages common in the ubiquitous video compression formats used by sites such as Youtube and Myspace.
Fat Bits, 2001 is a collaboration with Cory Arcangel. A triptych of monitors displays distorted close up NES run generated images of Ice Hockey players in combat. The abstracted motions of the brawling figures present a Bacon-esque scene replete with the groans and grunts of a pixelised slow motion struggle. The last of the NES works in Intentional Computing is a hacked cartridge that viewers are invited to play. Here the recognisable digital world of Super Mario’s world is cracked open in order to expose a visual territory alien to the normative format of this canonical game. Davis’ NES aesthetic is that of bricolage – solid slabs of reordered, pure proto-modernist colour are drawn from the spectrum of available data within each Nintendo game and forced together with a hackers touch. With his alterations a new game, a new screen and a new surface emerges.
The final work in Intentional Computing is the 8 Bit Construction set vinyl record – an art/music/computer concept LP featuring content originally developed on a Commodore 64. The audio data developed on the Commodore has been transferred to the dub plate alongside a Nintendo generated concept track and other computer generated ‘battle’ samples.
The unifying idea behind Intentional Computing– one that spans both the NES works, the compression aesthetic studies and the 8-Bit Construction Set record – is that lying latent within the most mundane, common or even obsolete of computer orientated technologies there lies a hidden field of pure potentiality. Quoting his influences as ranging from formalised British computing theory (Alan Turing) to the advent of widespread domestic console gaming (Mario), Paul B. Davis has pioneered a truly unique strategy through a multiplicity of actions, networks and artistic creations. His practice is at once rigorous, conceptual – even nerdy, while nonetheless fully intimate with the patois, style, attitude and aesthetic of retrogressively inspired, multi-media contemporary culture.
Paul B. Davis, as part of BEIGE, has exhibited internationally at venues including the The Whitney Biennial 2004 (NYC), Vilma Gold (UK) Team Gallery (NYC) and Foxy Productions (NYC).
Paul B. Davis, Video Compression Study II, 2007
Still from digital projection
Paul B. Davis, Fat Bits (in collaboration with Cory Arcangel), 2001
Television footage on 3 Nintendo cartridges
Paul B. Davis, Cover image from ‘8-bit construction set’ LP
Paul B. Davis, Five in One, NES Psych, 2007
Hacked NES cartridge
Paul B. Davis, Video Compression Study I, Untitled Data Mash Up, 2007
Installation shot
Digital video projection
Paul B. Davis, Video Compression Study I, Untitled Data Mash Up, 2007
Installation shot
Digital video projection
Paul B. Davis, Five in One, Fantasy Cutscenes, 2007 (screenshot)
Hacked NES cartridge
Paul B. Davis, Video Compression Study I, Untitled Data Mash Up, 2007
Installation shot
Digital video projection