Born in Buffalo, USA, Cory explains that the `couple thousand' short films are in fact 1,106 one-note edits taken from footage posted on the video sharing website YouTube.
The clips were then put together using bespoke audio technology designed by Cory to create two minutes of Bach's 1741 composition, The Goldberg Variations.
"For a while now, I've been working with existing music to create other music - taking notes from one song and rearranging it to make another," explains Cory, who is also a classically trained guitarist.
"Then YouTube came along and suddenly we have millions of notes you can take.
"With music videos, it's very rare that a guitar is playing alone, but on YouTube people post up their own videos of them playing songs.
Absolute torture
"It was months of absolute torture," Cory laughs, "sitting for nine, 10 hours a day. But I've always been a little bit of a computer nerd!"
Cory says that Bach was the obvious choice for `presenting his new technique', and the show is dedicated to Glenn Gould - a pianist, prodigy and Bach enthusiast - because he was known for cutting and pasting his own recordings.
A number of Cory's other pieces also feature, including: his video game, I Shot Andy Warhol, which Cory developed when he was a teenager; Permanent Vacation, a constant exchange of out of office messages between two computers; and Sans Simon, video footage of a Simon & Garfunkel concert in which Paul Simon is constantly obscured by Cory's hands.
"It gets people talking," smiles Cory. "They don't know whether I love Paul Simon or whether I hate Paul Simon."
Cory Arcangel's A Couple Thousand Short Films About Glenn Gould is on at Castlefield Gallery until Saturday, March 22 (open Wednesday- Sunday), Free.
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