What is the Fun Palace?
Gina Hara with Bart Simon, Darren Wershler and Angelica Calcagnile
and the TAG Minecraft Bloc
Nic Watson, Stuart Thiel, Derek Pasborg, Richy Srirachanikorn,
Andrew Rochon, Nat Torre and Rosie McDonald
Village Numérique par MUTEK
Montréal, August 15-29, 2024
This artwork uses video projection and Minecraft machinima to explore the parallel spatial utopian imaginaries of the the Fun Palace from 1964 and modded Minecraft in 2024. Visitors to the Fun Palace were meant to find a monumental yet cybernetically adaptable space for the people which would be resistant to the burgeoning consumer capitalist leisure industry. Using the utopian device of the monorail we experience the scope and scale as well as the sensory distraction and disjunction we imagine for the Fun Palace as extended to a utopian reworking of the most popular video game of all time. The experience provides a videogame-like mix of an historical avant-garde moment with a media arts present and points to the ways we can rethink the idea of the Fun Palace today.
Primary materials courtesy the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Text by Joan Littlewood. Sound by Delia Derbyshire, courtesy of BBC.
