A conversation with Sabato on 'Barbie World: The Breakdown Sessions'
The highly anticipated solo drop on the objktone platform, which went live yesterday, is an amazing series of eight works, unique 1/1 pieces and (already sold out) limited edition pieces of 10, that blend nostalgia, glitch art, and social commentary.
Still of B a r b i e ~ W o r l d : The Breakdown Sessions by Sabato.
Sabato reflected on the profound impact of early gaming experiences on his creative development. "I was born in the mid-80s, so I was very much there for the video game revolution," he recalls. His first gaming system was a Nintendo, a gift from his parents at the age of four or five, which led to countless hours spent playing classics like Gradius and the original Super Mario Brothers with his dad. As Sabato grew, so did his collection of consoles, including a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, and a Nintendo 64.
A popular device among kids was the Game Genie, a cartridge that fit into Super Nintendo or Sega consoles, allowing players to "hack the game" and use "sketchy codes" for advantages such as unlimited lives in Sonic. Games were “crazy hard" back then, making cheat codes almost essential to complete them. However, the Game Genie often caused glitches, allowing Sabato to encounter “glitches” for the first time.
“These cheat codes often caused the games to glitch, which fascinated me. (...) Game glitches were part of that experience of gaming as a kid.”
Sabato's fascination with game glitches continued with the release of Nintendo 64, particularly with "Mario 64," where camera movements could clip into Mario. His love for games extended to computer games like The Sims, where he would create unique characters, including Eminem and Elián González. These early experiences with gaming and glitches laid the foundation for his later work in glitch art.
After college, working as a photographer, his initial interactions with glitch were through photography and video works. Over time, as he engaged with the glitch artist community, he drew inspiration from classic video game glitches. A significant influence was Jodi's deconstructed version of the game Quake, a project that allowed players to access the game through a system folder, encountering various broken-down and glitched levels. Sabato recalls experimenting with this around the 2010s.
“Super Mario Clouds was really inspiring because it took me to this photographic point of view of games”. It’s “almost like a photograph of the game environment.”
Reflecting on his artistic influences, Sabato mentioned being particularly inspired by the Beige Collective’s piece Super Mario Clouds. This minimalist installation features only the cloud from Super Mario against a blue sky, with all other game elements removed. Exhibited at venues like the Whitney Museum, this work intrigued Sabato because it treated the game environment as a tangible, "phenomenological thing". He was also inspired by the contributions of Davis from the same collective, who has created glitched games for art installations.
Sabato's exploration into glitch art was deeply influenced by the broader glitch artist community and the tools that emerged around 2014. He highlighted the contributions of artists like Dawnia Dawstone and the Glitch Artists Collective. There was also the development of various tools, such as the freeware Vinesauce ROM Corruptor, and real-time corruption engines, which are effective for more complex games like those from the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Dreamcast eras. Sabato noted that this era saw a whole community dedicated to corrupting ROMs, including a YouTube channel devoted to the practice. His fascination with the photographic aspect of video games led him to view game environments through a lens of both photography and cinematography, treating them as subjects for "documentary photography".
The Cybertwee Manifesto
The Cybertwee Manifesto
A pivotal moment in Sabato's career was the decision to explore games that fell outside his personal childhood experiences, particularly those targeted at girls. Which led him to reflecting on the distinct gaming cultures of the 1990s in Japan and the US. In Japan, games such as those featuring Sailor Moon and Ghost Sweeper Mikami provided more diverse and dynamic experiences for girls, compared to the often passive titles marketed to girls in the US, such as the 1992 Barbie game.
“ The idea was to appropriate all this consumer girl aesthetic, and to use it critically”, “to consider how femininity is portrayed and signified” and“how to turn it into something empowering and subversive. ”
Sabato's interest in the Barbie game, despite its "consumerist" nature and lack of complexity, stemmed from a desire to challenge the stereotypical, passive roles assigned to female characters in games of that era. He was inspired by the Cybertwee Manifesto by Violet Forest, May Waver, and Gabriella Hileman,”which turned consumerist girl aesthetics on its head with a sharp and unwavering sense of criticality”.
Sabato's Barbie works are intentionally subversive, challenging the notion that cuteness makes things more controllable or manageable. He aligns with the sentiment expressed in the Cybertwee Manifesto: “The singularity is dear. Far too long have we succumb to the bitter edge of the idea that power is lost in the sweet and tender. Romantic is not weak. Feminine is not weak. Cute is not weak. We are fragmented and multifaceted bbs.” Learn more about the Manifesto here.
The Art of Becoming
Initially, Sabato was concerned about appropriation as a boy working with Barbie. However, he now relates to the character more deeply through his non-binary identity, understanding that cuteness can embody strength and empowerment rather than weakness.
MoMI
The End of History Will Be Fun
"Barbie World: The Breakdown Sessions" is a culmination of years of experimentation and artistic growth. The drop features a mix of unique 1/1 pieces and limited edition works, with some pieces dating back to 2016, remastered for this occasion. "The simplicity of the Barbie game made it an ideal candidate for glitching," Sabato says. Despite the chaos in the world, Barbie continued her rollerblading and runway routines, making her an interesting subject.
Some of Sabato’s pieces were featured in an installation curated by Regina Harsanyi at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in New York from June 28 to July 25, 2024. The works were displayed on the Schlosser Media Wall, a vast projection space near the museum's entrance. For Sabato, it was a dream to create such an elaborate installation. Reflecting on his work, he noted, “It was such a dream to make something of that scale, especially with my video game glitches.” Sabato was surprised that the Barbie series was selected for the exhibition. Initially, he thought other culturally significant games might be chosen, but the Barbie series, with its vibrant and distinctive aesthetic, was a compelling choice. He embraced the opportunity to create a striking pink installation, creating a “Barbie shrine”.
The exhibition featured remastered versions of Sabato’s 2016 works. He emphasized the importance of revisiting and refining older pieces: "Every digital artist should have the opportunity to go back to works from ten years ago and rework them for today’s display".
For Sabato, the most rewarding aspect about the exhibition at the MoMI was observing how children engaged with the installation. He shared, “One of the big things was to see how the kids were interacting with the wall. If you make a work that kids can see and be in awe of, although they may not understand the mechanics, the meaning, or the subtext, that’s when you really did it.”
Political Message with Tenderness
Annihilate Each Decade
Sabato views humor as a powerful tool in his art, using it to convey political messages in a way that can be more impactful than direct or aggressive approaches. For example, in this series, Sabato's approach to titling his works involved a thoughtful process influenced by feminist literature he has engaged with over the years. While these references may not be immediately apparent to everyone, they are embedded in the artwork as "political commentary seeds." As an artist, Sabato embraces the idea that even if these connections aren't immediately recognized, they contribute to a broader discourse and might resonate with future audiences in unexpected ways: “You live for these connections as artists”.
The drop was a success, with all editions of Sabato’s Barbie series already sold out. Four 1/1 pieces from the collection have also received their first bids. We are also excited to see Pocobelli, who runs a fantastic YouTube channel on art and NFTs—especially on Tezos—dedicate part of his new artist journal to discussing this drop. He noted, “There is a lot to love about these works.”
Discover the pieces and read the art statement by Sabato here.
About the Artist
Sabato Visconti is a Brazilian new media artist and photographer based in Western Massachusetts. Sabato graduated from Amherst College in 2009 with a degree in Political Science and began experimenting with glitch processes in 2011 with the help of a defective memory card that randomly wrote zeroes onto JPEG files. Since then, Sabato has sought to interrogate imaging practices that have become absorbed by digital processes, hybridized media, online networks, and machine intelligence—technologies that have also enabled apparatuses for social conditioning, mass surveillance, and necropolitics, through works that captures the plight of the subject in the face of environmental turbulence driven by systems designed to fail and malfunction.
B a r b i e ~ W o r l d : The Breakdown Sessions - By Sabato
On the objkt.com platform, and objktone.
Follow the artist: @sabatobox
