Connor Gottfried CTRL-C For Sale

About this work

CTRL-C is a sculptural work created by Connor Gottfried in 2025, comprising aluminum composite panelling, a 7-inch IPS screen, a Raspberry Pi running an N64 emulator with the Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards ROM, an original N64 controller, and a 3D-printed controller wall mount. The work measures 30.5 × 37.5 × 6.5 inches, and its title—the universal keyboard shortcut for copying—frames the entire work as a meditation on reproduction, iteration, and the persistence of digital objects across time and platform. At its most literal level, CTRL-C is a functioning game console embedded within an art object: Kirby 64 runs on the screen, the original controller remains attached and operational, and contemporary IPS display technology is conscripted to render content designed for the cathode-ray televisions of the late 1990s. This temporal dislocation—content from the year 2000 displayed in 2025 hardware within a wall-hung art object—is central to the work's meaning. Gottfried is interested in the half-life of digital culture: how games, platforms, and interfaces persist, mutate, and are preserved or lost as hardware generations turn over, and what it means to give a beloved but obsolete experience a new body. The use of aluminum composite panelling connects CTRL-C to a tradition of industrial and architectural aesthetic in contemporary sculpture, while the 3D-printed controller mount signals the work's engagement with the fabrication technologies of the present moment. Gottfried positions his practice at the intersection of gaming culture, digital preservation, and material craft. CTRL-C is a smart, playful, and formally accomplished work, marking Gottfried as a significant voice in the emerging conversation between contemporary art and video game culture.