An art exhibition hidden in the heart of London featuring unique, hand-made retro game consoles went under the radar recently, and thankfully, I managed to visit it just days before the doors closed.
This exhibition, which I was sent via Instagram by a local follower, was managed by Connor Gottfried, a Canadian-based artist who has a serious skill in mashing nostalgia with cyberpunk-style pop culture characters/items.
This exhibition was located in Whitechapel, London, inside an art gallery called Stolen Space, open from 31st July to 31st August. I know, not long enough and if you're reading this, unfortunately, it's too late. I am sorry, I too did not know about it, but this article is the closest you're going to get!
The good news is that this is Connor's second "Play" exhibition, his first being held in Taiwan, so perhaps this will eventually make it to a city near you.
Connor’s creations are truly unique, with a mix of playable consoles, cartridge art, modified toys and even a dance mat incorporated into one of these pieces. Every piece of art is purchasable, ranging from £240 for the smaller de-configured cartridge art, all the way up to several thousand of pounds for the larger working box art consoles.
Starting with the most beautiful pieces, I fell in love with the retro gaming boxed games, featuring working Raspberry Pi consoles inside, allowing you to emulate the very game featured in the piece. Typically, on these pieces, there is a tiny screen that is replaced with what used to be a screenshot of the gameplay on the box, allowing you to input hours of gameplay into… an art piece?
This is hooked up to a wired controller of some kind, typically a 3rd party NES one that allows you to play, but I can imagine you can get this to work with other wired or wireless controllers if this has Bluetooth.
The first piece I came across was the largest of the bunch, featuring the Japanese Super Mario Famicom Box. This design, like the rest, features the box opened up, with a sneak peek at the cartridge and a motherboard to make it look like a working games console… which it is, allowing viewers to experience the original Super Mario Bros game.
Connor’s most infamous piece of the gallery is the strapped-up Care Bear, wired up with a screen on its face featuring what I believe is the Care Bear GAME BOY Advance game from 2005, also known as Care Bears: Care Quest. It’s a game I have never played, and it shows in this video, but ignore that and picture this in your games room.
Actually, don’t do that. I couldn’t see the console itself; either it was stuffed inside the Care Bear, or it was wired up underneath the pedestal. Either way, it's a very unique piece, and I'm kinda wondering if I can do this to my old plushies, or my corgi Pippin.
On the right-hand side of the gallery, there was a handful of more box art consoles, from the Japanese version of Zelda on the SNES. The pink cartridges Super Mario on Famicom, a Nintendo Wii strapped to an old-school music player.
The attention to detail on this one was very impressive, from buttons to the disc LED’s to wireless controllers, it’s super nostalgic and feels like Connor ripped these two devices apart and Frankensteined them together to get this.
Connor has a love for music players, and it shows in a couple of his pieces, from a DJ product mixed with a Playstation 1 dancing game, allowing viewers to play using the controller or the attached dance mat.
I’m not sure if the dance mat comes with the purchase but it was a lot of fun for exhibitors to experience. There was also a piece featuring a spinning record too which is pretty cool.
Then tucked in the corner were two more Super Mario boxed consoles featuring the iconic Super Mario Bros 2 and a classic being the Super Mario Bros 3 game and box art. This one featured multiple displays and a game to experience.
The vibrancy and the 3D nature of these pieces is something I haven’t seen before, and after speaking with the exhibitor, a few have already sold, and I can see why, they’re a bunch of fun.
Then on the other side, a toy Grogu who has faced a similar fate to the poor Care Bear. Grogu can be seen with his face cut off and a display strapped to it featuring the original Star Wars game on GAME BOY a game that I am familiar with. Grogu can even be seen holding a small GAME BOY too.
And while on the subject of GAME BOY, the final side of the exhibit shares a lot of love for it, featuring a GAME BOY in Connor’s style, opened up and playing Super Mario. This was a cool piece indeed, although the down button on the DPAD was assigned to the retropie’s menu button, which kept catching me out.
Next to that is a bunch of smaller cartridge art in both small and large sizes priced at £240 or £400. These are awesome and are limited to just 5 each, making them sought after if you’re both a collector of art and video games.
The Pokémon Silver version was one of my favourites, but there was a lot to view, from a Japanese Tamagotchi game to classic Pokémon games on GAME BOY. There were even some smaller GBA versions and Nintendo DS cartridges, too, for those of us who miss that darn beautiful handheld still to this day.
The last piece of the exhibition was a mashed-up NES console shaped into SpongeBob’s square pants, and you know what, it went together pretty well, almost too well!
This was playing SpongeBob episodes on repeat, and again, was super detailed and mashed nostalgia with a cyberpunk-style bionic SpongeBob.
It’s a great free exhibition that unfortunately has closed in London, but Connor will be hosting more around the globe as his last Play Exhibition was located in Taiwan a few months ago, so who knows, maybe these incredible pieces are coming to a city near you soon?
I wish this were advertised better so that more people outside of London got to come in to experience it; it truly went under the radar, which it doesn't deserve.
