Something funky and retro has come to New York’s Lower East Side and it’s got a soundtrack from a distant future-past. Seth Jabour, guitarist for the NYC indie band Les Savy Fav, has teamed up with the Faile street art collective and the graffiti artist, BAST, for a multimedia video arcade experience. For the next month, Allen Street will be home to an interactive video arcade installation set to Jabour’s infectious electronic score.
The Faile BAST Deluxx Fluxx Arcade infuses the game arcades of the 80s with the underground art of the distant future, you know… now. Not quite so cyber but definitely punk, the Arcade is a fully immersive experience covered head to toe with street collage. All the arcade cabinets have been completely redone to feature bold posterized pop art illustrations on the outside and custom games on the inside. Faile is calling it an “arcade remix.” It’d make Kevin Flynn proud. See below for a mini-documentary with the artists and watch them bring the Arcade to fluorescent life.
No arcade would be complete without games blaring sweet electronic melodies and sound effects, and to further emphasize that point, Jabour has composed a twelve-track soundtrack to remind 21st century brains how fun blowing all your money on tokens used to be. The soundtrack is chiptunes-centric electronica, with just as many grinding electronic noises as sentimental bleep bloops: Dr. Mario meets computerized death metal with moody space dungeon moments.
The Deluxx Fluxx Arcade was open in London earlier this year, but now the New York-based art project has at last come home. You can check out the Arcade from now ’til May 27th at 158 Allen St. New York, NY. And if you can’t make it to NYC, you can recreate the experience in your own home. Just dust off your 2600 and stream or download Jabour’s album for free.
