Babycastles is an
indie game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
development collective, arcade, and art space in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
Programming
The Babycastles arcade was designed to give independent game developers a public place to show their projects, and to establish such games as a social culture for New York City. The arcade was originally co-located with the music venue
Silent Barn in Queens. On most nights each week, the Babycastles basement arcade of indie and amateur video games opened during music shows upstairs. The space was open for those who paid for entrance to the upstairs show. The arcade's several games and their curators rotated on a monthly basis and were set in scavenged,
do-it-yourself
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...
arcade cabinets. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' likened it to "a 1970s
rec room
A recreation room (also known as a rec room, rumpus room, play room, playroom, games room, or ruckus room) is a room used for a variety of purposes, such as parties, games and other everyday or casual activities. The term ''recreation room'' is c ...
reimagined by hackers". In its current Manhattan space, it remains closer in configuration to a DIY punk space than an art gallery.
The venue has hosted a recurring video game tournament called Hot Ronny's Rumble. Other events and exhibitions include the 2014 book release for
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...
's ''When Google Met WikiLeaks'' and the 2016 "Yo Fight My Mans", curated by
Ashok Kondabolu
Ashok Kumar Kondabolu (born 1985), also known by his stage name Dapwell (or Dap), is an American actor, writer, and internet personality from Queens, New York City. A graduate of Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, Kondabolu was first known for ...
and including five weeks of art installations, live DJs, panel discussions, and a custom
fighting video game
A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and chaining attac ...
.
History
Kunal Gupta and Syed Salahuddin started the Babycastles collective in 2009 in the basement of Silent Barn, a Ridgewood, Queens, cooperative performance space where Gupta lived. Following a robbery in mid-2011 and closure by zoning violations, a search began for a new space, which they opened in May 2013 in
Bushwick, Brooklyn
Bushwick is a neighborhood in the northern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens, to the northeast; Williamsburg to the northwest; East New York and the cemeteries of Highland Par ...
. Babycastles opened in
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The area's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River and West Street to the west, and Sixth Avenue to the east, with its northern b ...
, on
14th Street in 2014. The owner of its building specifically sought to rent it to artists. Babycastles chose the location based on its equal proximity to New York's five boroughs.
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{Portal bar, Video games, New York City
2009 establishments in New York City
American artist groups and collectives
Art venues
Music venues in Manhattan
Chelsea, Manhattan