I had a chance to attend the closing show of Tetricide at pehrspace this past Saturday night. Interestingly enough, it was the same weekend as the Tetris World Championship (won by Redondo Beach’s own Jonas Neubauer). According to event organizers Sean Carnage and walt! productions, Tetricide is “a multimedia exploration of the many facets of video game culture – focusing primarily on “old school” video games, embracing a pixelated aesthetic.”

The first thing I to my left as I entered the gallery was a modified arcade cabinet by Austin Wolf-Sothern. Aside from gutting the body to put a television and video player inside, the cabinet was a in great condition and had some slight decorations like a dragon banner running down one side. It’s the kind of arcade cabinet you would want in your home. Despite the joysticks and buttons, it was designed mainly to display a 43 minute cut of Wolf-Sothern’s film, “Tetris: The Movie” (originally 70 minutes).

He made the movie in the pre-Youtube era of 2002 by plugging his Nintendo into a VCR and editing that with another VCR. According to Wolf-Sothern, “there’s some experimental editing, some noise music, and a segment where I narrate over a game and use the words “Tetris Master” about 500 times.”

Unfortunately, someone got a little too excited later that night and bumped into the machine, causing parts of the cabinet to collapse into itself.

Next in line was a modified Q*bert arcade cabinet. This was a video installation that projected movies by four different artists. First was “Timid Altimeters & Big Boy Pants” by Sam Yurick:

That was followed with “Stark” by Luis Naranjo:

Stark from HelloDentist on Vimeo.

After that was “Gender Dysphoria” by J.R. Baldwin:

It was rounded out with “Vermicide” by walt!:

This one was the trippiest. Three business suit wearing rats would wander around a super colorful landscape. They would encounter Victor, Demitri, and Felicia from Darstalkers before fighting a giant skull.

Rachel Cole’s “Sweat River” installation was another cabinet modified to play movies. The installation seemed the sturdiest in comparison to the others due to the metal parts of the cabinet. Cole, a Disney enthusiast, also had four movies playing in rotation. “M.J. & The Beanstalk” was the entire clip of “Mickey and the Beanstalk” overdubbed with a chiptune remix of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal.” “It’s the 80′s” was a clip of the jetpack demonstration at Disneyworld. “African Pygmy Adventure” looked like one of the documentaries shot by Walt Disney Studios. And “Tarzan T.V.” was a short playthrough of what looked to be “Tarzan Untamed” for the PS2.

The most eye-catching work has to go to Clark Walter’s “Gods vs. Underdogs” installation. One god, the one with a secondary head bursting out of its chest, was placing underdogs on the grill while the other god, dressed in a Sesame Street costume and Ultimate Warrior makeup, was frying them with lightning bolts. The underdogs were hot dogs with very distinct facial expressions. They were either on the grill or hanging up in the air.

Easily the two crowd favorites were Stanislaus Dyro III’s “Nintendo Game Boy” installation and William Lu’s “Super Mario Bros. DeathbombArc Hack” installation. “Nintendo Game Boy” was a five foot tall recreation of a Game Boy with a playable version Tetris on the screen, green hues and all.

“Super Mario Bros. DeathbombArc Hack” was playable version of the original Super Mario Bros. game nested within a large Mario pipe structure. The game’s character and item sprites were swapped out by Lu. Mario was a man named Brian, Goombas were Bush signs, Koopas were dollar bills, the coins were upside down crosses, Lakitu was a monkey throwing feces, the Hammer Brothers were Ku Klux Klansmen, and Princess Peach was Jesus Christ.

Aside from the cosmetics, Tetris and Mario played true to their original incarnations. They managed to suck in anyone that picked up their controllers. In fact, these two installations attracted the crowd so well that it was easy to miss Lu’s 19 pixel art paintings hanging on the wall next to the machines.

The only real drawback to Tetricide was that the videos and installations overshadowed the paintings and illustrations. This became even more problematic as pehrspace became more crowded as the musical acts began to play. Don’t get me wrong, the high energy performances from Graffiti Monsters, Juiceboxxx, I.E., and Baseck were awesome and deserve their own separate post. Luckily, there are plenty of great pics posted by walt! at Fecal Face. You can go there to check out the works of Craig Miller, Jim Tozzie with PFFR, and John Pham in detail. Overall, Tetricide was a great gallery and I look forward to seeing more from Sean Carnage and walt! in the future.