Event: ART & ARCADE (January 16 - March 16, 2014 Basel, Switzerland)

By far, one of the most exciting events of early 2014. Taking place at the House of Electronic Arts Basel, Art & Arcade is a new show curated by Alain Bieber featuring "seven artistic arcade-machines from all over the world (Painstation, PentaPong, The Machine, Radical ATM, Tesla Arcade, Cage was a n00b and Racer), combined with other works of JODI, Evan Roth, and Hussein Chalayan". Other participants include Djeff, MOBILESKINO, Haas, Wellershoff, Winter, //////////fur//// art entertainment interfaces, Andreas Ullrich / C. Rockefeller Art Investment Group, Ivan Kozenitzky, Frederico Lazcano, Canedo, Maingardt, Hartmann.

"Arcade video machines are cult. They first appeared in the United States and Europe in the 1970s, as a new variation on the traditional ‘penny arcades’.  Classics such as Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and Tron marked the heyday of electronic video games. Many successful games were later released for use on PCs and video game consoles and thus accelerated the spread of home computers. Many artists use arcade video machines as an artistic medium. Not only do they program arty computer games, they also turn the machines themselves into art objects and installations. The artists convert their machines, pimping them up with new functions, creating new game worlds, playing around with the 8-byte aesthetic and transforming games culture into art.

The exhibition at the House of Electronic Arts Basel simulates a ‘video game arcade’ with seven artistic arcade-machines from all over the world ("Painstation", "PentaPong", "The Machine", "Radical ATM", "Tesla Arcade", "Cage was a n00b" & "Racer"), combined with other works of JODI, Evan Roth, and Hussein Chalayan. Visitors can, of course, not only admire the best of artists’ video arcade creations but also play them." (Alain Bieber)

Highlights (Pentapong, Tesla Arcade, Cage was a noob)

ART & ARCADE

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti (thank you, Lukas Zitzer)