London art fans turned out this Thursday night to witness the most simultaneously fun and original show we’ve witnessed since, well, probably ever! The “Faile Bast Deluxx Fluxx Arcade” is in town and after a week of installation time, is now officially open for business! Faile (aka: the Patricks) and Bast transformed the ground floor into a fully functioning video game arcade, with old school cabinets – some of which we recognized from our misspent youth – being given the paste-up treatment.

Read on for more details and pictures after the jump.


The video games themselves were were full on interactive art pieces, with the games created specially for the show, and we loved how the old school vibe of the graphics featuring the signature styles of the artists echoed the Faile retrospective happening down the road at the Lazarides Rathbone Place gallery.

The doorway greets the gamers with a neon sign in with window and a token machine to exchange your cash for the minted tokens to play the games with – Bast rocking a Darth Vader carrying a baby on one side of the coin, marked ‘Lon’ 2010. Faile’s side was marked ’86, natch.

The basement was an explosion of dayglo colour with the walls fully covered by paste ups and the floor stenciled with a carpet of geometric patterns. Two table football games (or foosball for our stateside readers) were the centerpiece of the basement – if you get chance to check out the show, remember, no spinning!

S. Butterfly’s set is also viewable here.
Discuss this show here.
Discuss Faile here. Discuss Bast here.