Pinball ARTcade
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Collaborative and interactive public artwork, gallery installation, and series of side-show performances. Beck served as the Artistic Director, artist, educator, and performer. 40’ x 30’ x 120’. Boston Center for the Art and The Revolving Museum. 1996-7. Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Inspired by Beck’s father who owned a penny arcade, Beck coordinated to create a megaolithic pinball-machine environment involving hundreds of artists, youth, community members, colleges, schools, social service agencies, and deaf and blind populations. The viewer became the pinball bouncing, tilting, and slamming around the space that featured artistcally-transformed pinball bumpers, trap doors, bowling, miniature golf, souvenir store, spinning wheels, murals, tents, electronic games, and more. A vast amount of themes were explored within the project including gambling, sexuality, racism, violence, war, AIDS, homelessness, ecology and politics.
