Back to the Future: Console Living Room Exhibit at UMW

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Image Credit: “Home Gaming Archive Puts Classics at Your Fingertips”

After Spring Break, I’ll be working with professor Zach Whalen to create an interactive installation on the 4th Floor of UMW’s Information Technology & Convergence Center (ITCC). The installation will feature a replica of a living room circa 1985, think of it as a cultural time capsule within UMW’s  brand new state-of-the-art digital convergence building. This installation is Zach’s brainchild, and it’s both fun—who doesn’t want to play Atari 2600 games on an old school tube TV or surf cable channels from 30 years ago?—- because it both frames and highlights the evolution of “convergence” around digital media over the last thirty years. The epicenter of which, one might argue, is the 1980s archetypal living room/den. And that’s what we’re gonna build!

Thanks to Michael Branson Smith for the ongoing GIF isnpiration.

Right now we are in the building stage, we just put a call out to the UMW community to see if anyone would be willing to loan or donate furniture, art, accessories, etc., from that era. I figured a quick cross-list on the bava might be useful just in case anyone stumbles on this post and has books, magazines, catalogs, posters, audio visual equipment (including personal computers), and furniture (lazy boys, couches, tables, etc.) from that era they might willing to contribute to the cause. In particular, we are trying to get an oversized TV set with a cathode ray tube—that is gonna be the centerpiece of this installation. Screw all the flat screens—it’s all about that bulk, ’bout that bulk —no ipads!

This entry was posted in Console Living Room, digital storytelling, TV, video games and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to Back to the Future: Console Living Room Exhibit at UMW

  1. Reverend says:

    MBS,

    You rock, just bid. Fired up!

  2. Quinntero says:

    Don’t forget the aluminum foil on the ends of the rabbit ears, and the vise grips clamped on the metal channel tuner because the Bakelite knob broke off.

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