Babycastles Living

Factsheet

Exhibition:
Babycastles Living
Based in New York, NY

On view:
Oct 8 - Oct 30, 2015

Website:
babycastles.com

Press / Business contact:
meow@babycastles.com

Social:
Babycastles Twitter
Babycastles FB
Babycastles Insta
Babycastles Tumblr
Pinkhouse Insta
Pinkhouse FB
Pinkhouse Website
Prash Insta
Prash Tumblr
Prash Twitter
Prash Website
James Orlando Insta
James Orlando Tumblr
James Orlando Website
Stephen Lawrence Clark Insta
Stephen Lawrence Clark Twitter
Stephen Lawrence Clark Website
Anjali Chandrashekar Twitter
Anjali Chandrashekar Insta
Anjali Chandrashekar Website

Address:
Babycastles Gallery
137 w 14th St
New York, NY

Phone:
+1 203 435 5248

Description

Babycastles Living is a virtual reality exhibition designed around furniture objects by Pinkhouse, accompanied by games that celebrate home furnishings and personal space.

How it Happened

Traditionally, furniture builds memories; it is long-lasting, passed down generations; it is durable and difficult to move-- a one-time purchase. We don’t care about any of that. We’re interested in objects that reflect today; objects that are time- and trend-specific as opposed to timeless. “Timelessness” died when the internet was born. The objects in Don’t Be Sad, among them a Dog, a Mirror, a Banana, a Drip Stool, and a Drip Table, are intended for instantaneous consumption. With this collection we are looking to online content as a model, where new images are consumed rapidly, provide an oh-so-brief dopamine rush, and fade quickly. Don’t Be Sad’s simple, iconic, playful objects lend themselves to this aesthetic. They are meant to give you joy or amusement and even a place to sit in the here-and-now. They should be be bought as an impulse purchase, not an investment. Pinkhouse is a multidisciplinary design studio founded by Lukas Bentel, Jian Shen Tan, and Kevin Wiesner, of Hello Velocity; the team now also includes Alicia Valencia. Pinkhouse works in both object design and spacemaking. We create objects and environments that provide happiness, and sidestep the seriousness that plagues contemporary design.

Babycastles Living was curated by Prashast Thapan and Stephen Lawrence Clark of Babycastles Gallery. Prashast collaborated with James Orlando to create two virtual reality experiences that showcased Pinkhouse's furniture collection "Don't be Sad." Stephen curated videogames that celebrate home furnishings and personal space in Babycastles' signature arcade cabinets. The curation has three aspects that come together: furniture objects, virtual reality experiences and videogames in arcade cabinets.

Pinkhouse's objects were used in different ways to transform the space and create interactive experiences. Two hundred foam replicas of bananas by Pinkhouse were collected in a "banana pit," which became a place for people to hang out. The "Dog" was used in the back room as a seat for the "Pinkhouse Showroom" VR experience, its duplicate was suspended from the ceiling. The "Smile! Mirrors" are arranged in a row on the wall, asking people to take selfies and upload them using #pinkhouseselfie. The drip stool invitingly sits on a patch of astroturf, next to a tiny banana pen. The "Caterpillar" takes center-stage in the "Ride the Caterpillar" VR experience where players are made to sit on the Caterpillar and put an Oculus Rift on to ride it through a virtual racetrack. The exhibition is also accompanied by a display of Anjali Chandrashekar's Luna Moon Plates and Bum Bum, the world's best toilet seat: which is installed in the Babycastles bathroom.

These VR experiences are a collaboration between James Orlando and Prashast Thapan. James handled the design while Prash took care of development. The VR experiences are integrated with the furniture showcased in the gallery space. "Ride the Caterpillar" is a racing simulation where players are made to sit on Pinkhouse's "Caterpillar" and race it on a virtual racetrack. The track features slow-motion jumps where players can break Luna Moon Plates by designer Anjali Chandrashekar and break down billboards of advertisements by Pinkhouse, among other things. "Pinkhouse Showroom," the second VR experience, is a third person VR demo in a surrealist world showcasing all the furniture from Pinkhouse's collection. Installed in the backroom, players are made to sit on Pinkhouse's "Dog," which is placed in a pink circle.

Videogames celebrating home furnishings and personal space were curated by Stephen Lawrence Clark in Babycastles' signature arcade cabinets. The games curated are as follows:

American Dream by Terry Cavanagh, Increpare, Jasper Byrne, Tom Morgan-Jones -- Purchasing furniture, playing a fantastical stock market, and throwing parties. Furniture as cultural cache, a thing which requires wealth but helps get more of it through social interactions it allows.

Home Improvisation by The Stork Burnt Down -- A game about assembling things. Furniture as an object that is actually just a collection of other objects.

Confessional by Amy Dentata -- Write whatever you like in your diary, and try to keep in hidden from mom -- at the exhibition the game was kept behind a curtain with a sign that read "Please Knock Before Entering". Furniture as something which can create private space for you to explore yourself.

Inflorescence by Katie Rose Pipkin, Loren Schmidt -- Generate cities and read their histories, stories, and features. A city is just a sufficiently large enough collection of furniture.

Babycastles Living is on view till October 30th at Babycastles Gallery in New York City.

Team

Prashast Thapan
Curation, VR Development

Stephen Lawrence Clark
Curation

James Orlando
VR Design, Photography

Anjali Chandrashekar
Designer of Luna Moon Plates

Lukas Bentel
Pinkhouse member

Kevin Wiesner
Pinkhouse member

Jian Shen Tan
Pinkhouse member

Alicia Valencia
Pinkhouse member

Joey Perez
Ambience and Lighting

The Babycastles Community
Love and support

Contact

Twitter
twitter.com/babycastles

Facebook
facebook.com/babycastles

Instagram
instagram.com/babycastles

Tumblr
babycastles.tumblr.com

Web
babycastles.com