The Plug-In Studio's STREET ARCADE is a community-based project using the creation of art video games as a platform for community dialogue.
Over the summer of 2015, Plug-In Studio artists Steve Ciampaglia and Kerry Richardson collaborated with 13 teen artists from Chicago's South Side to create a series of video games on contemporary social issues: white privilege, racial profiling, peer pressure and others. These 8-bit style games were installed at the Street Arcade, an outdoor public video game event at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. The Plug-In Studio designed and fabricated five custom arcade consoles with red knob joysticks and big plastic buttons. These were placed along Cornell Ave on a warm summer evening, with each console projecting the games in large scale onto the exterior of the Art Center building. As community members gathered on the sidewalk to play the games, the teen artists engaged them in a dialogue about the issues addressed in the games.
Play the Street Arcade games online here.
This project is generously supported by A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art. The Street Arcade project was offered in partnership with Hyde Park Art Center.
