The Road Show

As the infrastructure bill reconfirms America’s bipartisan love for roads and cars, we propose a showcase of six games dealing with traffic jams, highway engineering, spaghetti junctions, and self-driving madness. Come out and play, love, fight and survive on virtual asphalt.

Games: Need 4e+9 Speed by Kalonica and Jason Bakker /// Sayonara Wild Hearts by Simogo /// Freeways by Justin Smith /// Tokyo Highway by Itten Games /// Neocab by Chance Agency /// Sebil Engineering by FrogStore

 

Friday September 3rd, 2021
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

 

Nolympics

The Olympics are back and they are more controversial than ever: a juggernaut displacing communities, wasting public money, superspreading diseases, and imposing outrageous rulings… LIKELIKE celebrates the ancient competition in its own way with an exhibition of outlandish sports videogames. Play some made-up disciplines with friends and strangers! Experience athletic ecstasy without breaking a sweat! No skills required! Come vaccinated, or mask up!

Games: Drink more Glurp by Catastrophic_overload /// My Exercise by Atsushi Wada, Ryoya Usuha & Playables /// What The Golf? By Triband /// Realistic Summer Sports Simulator by Captain Games /// Super Pole Riders by Bennett Foddy

Friday August 6th, 2021
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

Welcome to Apocablyss

LIKELIKE is back IRL with an exhibition of works by Paloma Dawkins and an international network of collaborators. The Montreal-based cartoonist/animator is known for her immersive landscapes populated by whimsical characters and hand drawn fractals.
Embark in a psychedelic odyssey through the highest clouds to the ocean deep, from Kafkian gardens to mind-and-body virtual playgrounds. There is no better way to return to “normalcy” and “reality”.

Works: Museum of Symmetry /// Palmystery /// Gardenarium /// Alea /// Songs of the Lost /// Ocenarium

Friday July 2nd, 2021
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

First Person Soother

LIKELIKE Online is expanding to the third dimension! Create a cute/repulsive avatar and hang out with friends and strangers in a stunningly realistic virtual recreation of our gallery.

The show will feature six games experimenting with the first person perspective. From diaristic stop motion to abstract soundscapes, all the pieces are playable in just a few minutes and from the comfort of your home.

Works: If We Were Allowed To Visit by Gemma Mahadeo and Ian MacLarty /// Sepulchre by Sean S. LeBlanc /// I AM NOT WHAT REMAINS by ompuco /// Meditative Anxiety by Ansh Patel /// Dialogue 3-D by Ramsey Nasser /// 10 Mississippi by Karina Popp

Opening: Friday September 4th
7PM (EST)
likelike3d.herokuapp.com

Browser-based (computer), free and open to the public.

Interactive Movie Night

A special live-streamed event featuring four audience-controlled movies from three different generations. Opening the evening is Kinoautomat, a 1967 Czech satire of democracy that holds up surprisingly well today. Following next, I’m Your Man, a proof-of-concept for a future of cinema that never materialized. Representing the era of CD-ROMs is Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Choices, an original piece produced for LIKELIKE and based on a semi-forgotten educational game starring Quentin Tarantino and Jennifer Aniston. Closing the evening is The Immoral Ms. Conduct, a cheeky mix of found footage and animation set in a female prison.

The viewers will be able to vote in real time at every forking path. 

Don’t miss this unique quadruple feature! All the films are hard to find and threatened by different forms of technological obsolescence.

 

Friday August 7, 2020
Starting at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time
On Twitch at: https://twitch.tv/molleindustria

 

Program:

Introduction
Kinoautomat (1967), directed by Radúz Činčera
I’m Your Man (1992), directed by Bob Bejan
Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Choices, directed by Steven Spielberg (1996), remixed by Molleindustria (2020)
The Immoral Ms. Conduct (2011) by Hannah Epstein

LIKELIKE Online Presents: The end of the word as we know it

LIKELIKE Online is mutating again! This month’s exhibition is taking place in a text-only multiplayer environment and features six works pushing at the boundaries of interactive fiction. Choose your own adventure along with friends and strangers! Party like it’s 1990! But watch out: a mysterious parasite is spreading among visitors…

Works: The ballroom by Liza Daly /// Nested by Orteil /// Human Errors by Katherine Morayati /// AI Dungeon by Nick Walton /// Queers at the end of the world by anna anthropy /// Administer Naxalone by Al Donato

Opening: Friday June 26th
7PM (EST)
likeliketext.glitch.me

Browser-based, free and open to the public.
Bring your friends, social interaction is required.

LIKELIKE ONLINE Presents: A Pico Pandemic

LIKELIKE online is back with a brand new virtual exhibition of tiny games about isolation, existential dread, human touch and lack thereof.

All the works in the showcase are made for PICO-8, a “fantasy console” created by Lexaloffle Games (Joseph White). Like the consoles of the ‘80s, PICO-8 imposes harsh technical limitations in terms of resolution, colors and cartridge memory. An entire community of virtuoso developers, demoscenesters, and retro-remakers thrives in this hyper constrained environment.

The Online Museum of Multiplayer Art will be open as well. Bring your friends for some safe, socially distanced, fun.

Works: STRUNG OUT in heaven’s high by Sean S. LeBlanc and Ian Martin /// Hybris by Benjamin Soulé /// Embrace by Remy Devaux /// Get Comfortable by mcccclean /// Ennuigi by Josh Millard /// Various Creators from the PICO-8 demo scene

Friday, May 1st 7PM-11PM
>>> likelike.org <<<
Everything is playable from the browser.

Cover image based on “nCoV” by Michał Rostocki

The online Museum of Multiplayer Art

Join us for the inauguration of the oMoMA, a new wing of LIKELIKE devoted to online multiplayer art. Experience nine playful environments that interrogate our notions of mediated sociality and digital embodiment. The virtual installations, operating at the intersection of art and technology, draw from the tradition of experimental chats, net.art, conceptual language games, and online roleplaying worlds.

Friday April 17,
4PM EST
>> likelike.org <<
Browser-based, free and open to the public.
Bring your friends, social interaction is required.


A message from the trustees:

LIKELIKE’s pivot to online exhibitions has proven widely successful. In the first two weeks since the opening we attracted thousands of visitors from all over the world.
What started as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic is now turning into an unprecedented expansion of our institution in terms of assets and mission. While our signature mid-brow game shows will continue as scheduled, we are adding a series of high profile acquisitions in the new spaces carved out of our easily gentrifiable virtual neighborhood. We hope you’ll appreciate our commitment to transform this local D.I.Y. arcade into a world-class art museum.

LIKELIKE ONLINE presents: An Itsy Bitsy Crisis

Join us for the opening of LIKELIKE ONLINE, the littlest Massively Multiplayer Online World! Choose a fashionable avatar, hang out with pixelated friends, stand awkwardly in the corner of a loud gallery, play obscure games together… just like before the pandemic!

This month we are presenting a selection of works about crises and rebirths. All six games are made in Bitsy, a friendly tool created by Adam Le Doux. In recent years the Bitsy scene has produced a myriad of playable zines, confessional pieces, minimalistic adventures, and interactive poems. Playing and making Bitsy games is a perfect activity for a long day in quarantine.

Works: Our Damned Machine by Sophie Houlden /// Continental Drift by Cecile Richard /// Almanac of girlswampwar territory (…) by porpentine charity heartscape /// spiral house by Withering Systems /// Moss as Texture as Space Folding Onto Itself by Pol Clarissou /// The Last Human Touch by Cephalopodunk

Cover image: World of Bitsy by Mark Wonnacott

Friday, April 3rd 7PM-11PM
>>> likelike.org <<<
Playable with your browser of choice!

Revolution Mode

As the prospect of a political revolution in America becomes more concrete, we offer a selection of videogames commenting on power, inequality, and radical change.
Play as a secret agent of the French Revolution, as a hypothetical President Sanders, as a subversive witch, or as an inexplicably woke Jeff Bezos. Experience the last months of the Fascist regime and the last seconds of a king’s life.

Works: Venti Mesi (20 Months) by We Are Müesli /// A Bewitching Revolution by Colestia /// Secret Agent Cinder by Emily Ryan /// Statues by Space Backyard /// Democratic Socialism Simulator by Molleindustria /// You Are Jeff Bezos by Kris Ligman

Friday March 6th, 2020
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl
205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

Persistence of Pong

Persistence of Pong (P.O.P.) is a playable installation by Pittsburgh-based artist and musician Jesse Stiles.

An ordinary ping pong table is augmented with reactive sounds and lights, turning the game into a disorienting synesthetic experience for players and spectators alike. The installation presents players with syncopated patterns of light that play with the illusion known as persistence of vision – the phenomenon that distinguishes between the perception of still images versus continuous motion. These patterns are triggered directly by the bouncing of the ball, which is detected by microphones embedded in the table. Similarly, the installation presents disorienting patterns of sound that teeter between rhythm (individual sounds) and pitch as the speed of the action increases and decreases based on game play. Players may choose to cooperate by trying to keep the ball in play through increasingly hallucinatory levels or may seek to destroy the competition in the most disorienting ping pong environment technology can provide.

Warning: this installation involves intense flashing lights that may cause discomfort or trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.

Also featuring: FLOP by Bennett Foddy

Opening:
November 1st, 2019
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl
205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

Persistence of Pong will be playable throughout LIKELIKE’s winter break by appointment and during the February 7th gallery crawl.

Last stop

A show featuring New Urbanist Games for Transit-Oriented Teens. Celebrate public transportation as portrayed / idealized / fetishized by videogames. Take an infinite bus ride! Ride an infinite bus! Master the controls of a handsome Deutsche Bahn ICE 3M class 406! Plan the most efficient subway system! Drive a trolley in a whimsical world! Plan your commute on a future-Pittsburgh transit map!

Works: 4Ever Transit Authority by Turnfollow /// Mini Metro by Dinosaur Polo Club /// A Short Trip by Alexander Perrin /// Future Finger Commute by Holly Gramazio and LIKELIKE /// Train Simulator 2019 by Dovetail Games /// Snakeybus by Stovetop Games

Friday October 4th, 2019
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

Analog Pleasures

A special show featuring videogames that transcend standard hardware. Have you ever played a VHS, an LED strip, or an oscilloscope? Have you ever used your sense of smell in a videogame or strapped a joystick on your crotch? This may be your only chance!

Works: Vector Kite by Gregory Witt & Richard Kolling /// Cock Fight by Hannah Epstein /// Line Wobbler by Robin Baumgarten /// Swordfight by Kurt Bieg and Ramsey Nasser /// Guilty Smells by Molleindustria & Heather Kelley /// Threadsteading by Lea Albaugh, Gillian Smith, Jim McCann, Chenxi Liu, Jen Mankoff, and April Grow

Friday September 6th, 2019
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St.
Pittsburgh, PA

Sportsball night

The soccer world cup is over and football season hasn’t started yet, but don’t despair! This exhibition will quench your cravings for any ball sport. Bring your friends or challenge strangers in four multiplayer games that radically reimagine American and unamerican football.

Works: Push Me Pull You by House House /// Grass Stains by Nina Freeman, Aaron Freedman, Diego Garcia, and Amos Roddy /// Three Sided Football Arcade by Molleindustria /// AnyBall by Laurenz Riklin, Hang Ruan, Pao Salcedo

Friday August 2nd, 2019
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA

SYSTEM ERROR: A Nathalie Lawhead retrospective

Nathalie Lawhead (aka AlienMelon) is an artist and independent game designer based in Irvine, CA. Throughout the years she created a bizarro computing world made of decaying operating systems, apocalyptic apps, fascist antiviruses, and friendly virtual pets. Between pixelated revelries and hysterical glitches there are authentic moments of vulnerability. Lawhead’s playable artifacts manage to explore self-doubt, disconnection, and the horrors of our digital life in a challenging and humorous way.

Works: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK /// ARMAGAD / Tetrageddon /// F2OGGY (Only One Survives) /// Electric Zine Maker /// various Potatoware 

Friday July 5th, 2019
7-11PM
During the Unblurred gallery crawl

205 North Evaline St
Pittsburgh, PA