REGION > PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
MAY 17, 2018

Born out of the need to exhibit playable artwork without the baggage of 80s arcade structures or nerdy conventions settings, LIKELIKE popped up last February in Paolo Pedercini (executive director) and Tenley Schmida’s (reluctant director) garage in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA.

Since its conception, LIKELIKE has hosted four group exhibitions which have dealt with themes including complicated relationships, the first person shooter, man's best friend and labor as work. Opening next month, June 1st Fanciful Bodies  will explore the human figure.

With shifting rules, structures, narratives, technology, and perhaps most difficult of all, the viewer’s attention span and willingness to participate, Pedercini recognizes the challenges games face in a white walled setting but sees them more as obstacles to work with rather than inhibit.  

Somehow, I managed to not even ask Pedercini about the origin of the gallery’s name. Is it a reference to Instagram double taps? A satirical spinoff of the word “life-like”? In the world of Legend of Zelda, jello-like enemies named “Like Like” are known for sucking up Link and stealing his equipment.The name’s mystery aside, I spoke to Perdercini about LIKELIKE’s past, present, and future.

Fred Blauth: What are your goals for LIKELIKE?

Paolo Pedercini: The main goal is to provide an entry point to the world of independent and experimental games, especially to people who don't identify as gamers and are rightfully turned off by mainstream electronic entertainment. The secondary goal is to become a nexus for local game creators, media artists, and activists. For this purpose I'm planning to host more focused meetups for these contiguous scenes.

The long-term goal is to enable the creation and fruition of playable artworks that are pushing the boundaries of established practices: site-specific games, game performances, crowd games, live action roleplay, alternative escape-the-rooms and so on. What kind of playful experiences can we create when we don't have to conform to standard hardware or when we have complete control over a space and a captive audience?

FB: What was the catalyst for you to start the space?

PP: My personal challenge was to develop new ways to showcase projects that sit uncomfortably in both traditional art contexts and in game industry events. I've been making arty games for about 15 years and I experienced first hand the challenges of putting a 20+ minute experience in a white cube, dealing with visitors trained to not touch the art. The alternative to that are booths in crowded convention centers attended only by geeks with rigid preconceptions about what a game is supposed to look and play like.

I organized a few pop-up game events before and looked at similar venues in other cities (Babycastles in NYC, Video Game Art gallery in Chicago...) and I came to the conclusion that having control over space is much more efficient - I'm too old to haul cabinets and gear all over the city for one-off events. So when we bought this boarded-up house which came with a wrecked garage, it immediately seemed like a good mid-life crisis project.

FB: Are labels/specific terms important to you?

PP: Artists working with digital media often try way too hard to distinguish themselves from popular culture. You see, if you are a painter, even a terrible painter, you don't have a problem with categories because painting is a fine-art-specific medium. If you work with computers, internet, or video you are immediately in dialogue/competition with design, electronic entertainment, television and vernacular internet culture, etc. So most new media artist stayed away from representational styles that may suggest such connection, for example opting for abstraction and digital formalism, or avoiding straight-up narrative forms.

On the other hand, makers of "game art" embraced gaming as cultural phenomenon and processed its elements into fine art objects in a pop-art kind of way, making a sculpture of Super Mario or whatever. Both approaches are oriented toward achieving some sort of "high culture" status, to get accepted into some fancy gallery alongside art that looks like art. I'm personally more interested in the potential for context collapse, in how games can be both highbrow and lowbrow, in how artist can disseminate challenging and sophisticated work through commercial channels.

FB: How does Pittsburgh and the Garfield neighborhood come into the narrative of your space? Has the city been receptive?

PP: The events happen during a fairly popular gallery crawl nearby so it's been interesting to see many people I don't know wandering in, playing games for the first time, and generally being confused by a space that doesn't quite look like anything they've seen before.

FB: What are some future shows/concepts/plans you're thinking about?

PP: We are going to have a solo show by a local queer gamemaker and an X-rated exhibition of games about really bad hookups.

PLAYABLE GAMES
Paolo’s game in April’s show, Citizen’s Cane
Dogness

Leon Arnott featured in February’s show, It’s Complicated
Triad 

Mauro Vanetti featured in May show, International Playborday
Two Interviewees

LIKELIKE is a neo-arcade and playful arts gallery promoting an experimental and independent game culture.

A space for independent games and playable arts. A strictly non-commercial, artist-run endeavor. An attempt to reimagine the social dynamics of the arcade without nostalgia and commodification of play. A venue for projects that don’t sit comfortably in traditional art contexts and game industry events. A node in a growing network of spaces and events promoting an alternative, experimental game culture. A 20’x23’x12’ room in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. A space committed to be inclusive and harassment-free.

likelike.org
205 North Evaline Streer Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
facebook.com/likelikearcade

Fred Blauth is a writer and curator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
fredblauth.wordpress.com

All images courtesy LIKELIKE

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