Monnaie de Paris invites visitors to a grand game of games until June 30, 2024 as part of the exhibition Enter Dogs (“Insert coin”), side view “something forgotten in the history of money”. That is, its use in money entertainment devices such as jukeboxes, table football, pinball machines and other video game terminals.
As a result of diving into social spaces, especially among young people, from the end of the 20th century to the present day, these objects have been (re)discovered in a similar situation to a time machine. There are Claude François album covers, usually of yéyé idols, as well as 1970s and 1980s designs in vibrant colors. Not to mention the incredible little beeps of these devices, the soundtrack of instant teleportation.
A pinball machine found in the “Insert Coin” display. (FG/FRANCEINFO)
“We wanted to highlight entertainment devices that were cornerstones of all youth culture from the end of World War II to the 1990s and 2000s, and it was obvious to us to bring them back into context”remember Nicolas Galiffi, co-curator of the exhibition Enter Dogs.
Bistros, bars and cafes as well as gaming rooms such as arcades are the options for these machines. “The truth is to have tried to find the tracers of these places and to present them as a way of recreating an atmosphere that visitors will immediately recognize.”.
Time travel
The “time travel” start by finding these tools, “put on” – normal, they became iconic – before they changed to the world of interactivity.
Enter Dogs allowing “every visitor, who knew these tools in their original places, found themselves immediately immersed in this universe. in which they were used”.
Bar decoration in the “Insert Coin” display. (FG/FRANCEINFO)
In the first room dedicated to the exhibition, the visitor finds the ancestor of pinball machines, David Gottlieb’s Baffle Ball. “It is a type of bagatelle game, an 18th century French game that was read by Americans in the 1930s, with a coin machine. This is the first time that a game of entertainment has a money machine in which you put pennies to play”, explained by Nicolas Galiffi. The throne is also in this place “one of the first arcade machines, a computer replacement from the 1970s, the first with a commercial goal”.
Beside him, French table football“something very European in practice obviously because football is a European sport”, include in representation. The picture is finished with a jukebox, “one of the devices that attracted interest from the 1950s“.
Facade of jukebox displayed at “Insert Coin”. (FG/FRANCEINFO)
Around these objects, imagination related to music, cars and mopeds – personal transport vehicles, “A Great Symbol of Liberty in the Glorious Thirties” -, technology, science fiction (space conquest) and sports (Tour de France among others). “All these main themes inspired the games and were able to raise the interest of young people over the next thirty years. Gradually pinball machines began to take on these themes that young people are interested in”. explained by Nicolas Galiffi.
“When we face a normal game Space Invaders, one of the first really successful terminals dating back to 1978, we are physically facing pixels that don’t look like much. On the other hand, in the head of a teenager at the time, which was fed with magazines, comics, novels, some television, music…
Intergenerational knowledge
“The Complete Gaming Experience” the show offers an intergenerational. Grandparents, parents and their children have eyes that glow around these devices. They bring back memories for the older ones and surprise the younger ones. At the end of the journey, they often become experts.
With family or friends, Enter Dogs often prompting laughter, childlike joy or even nostalgic shock. “But, no, yes A street fighter ! He is Killer instinctbut he reminds them”, shouts, surprised, a visitor as he enters the reconstruction of an arcade room, called “Argentic City” where we find, among other things, the unforgettable Pac-Man.
Visitors to “Argentic City”, one of the locations of the “Insert Coin” exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris, April 12, 2024. (FG/FRANCEINFO)
“We know that these tools have power over many people.”, referring to Nicolas Galiffi. So the show becomes a summary of mystery. better, “Revenge is reborn”. “People haven’t changed much, analysis of the joint curator of theEnter Dogsit’s just that society, for a thousand reasons, no longer offers them places of compassion as we knew them, about twenty years ago.s”.
So, with this show opening in March, cheers to Nicolas Galiffi, “We managed to recreate a kind of unconscious memory of this confidence that was partly created by machines. ” The queues seen around the machines confirm this.
A technology issue
The history presentation also refers to technical evolution which, over the decades, has accompanied the evolution of the market. “Everything that’s automated is a real industry, which has been very public oriented. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s, pinball machines appeared and took a large share of the market in cafes, bistros and some game rooms. significant commercial success, type. Space Invaders, has done a lot of damage to this auto industry. The latter then reset these video games. So he tried to develop this new portion of the market and change what is there. putting pressure on the joint commissioner.
Pinball machines, which were electromechanical, move gradually thanks, among other things, to electronics. “The games will be more complete so that we have the total immersion that we found in the 1980-1990s: sounds are recorded at the pinball machines, missions that are ordered by the small screens… .” Manufacturers are bringing together technical developments and the interest of players.
Private space features
However, when cafes and bistros began to decline in the eighties, and especially in the 2000s, access to pinball machines in public places decreased. Dog-operated entertainment devices change status: from object, “arranged in a public place”they will grow “private space things“.
Collectors broke them and later, without the coin mechanism that was removed in the late 1990s, they appeared in startup social spaces. The models found there are contemporary, but closely imitate what was there. Table football, which has not aged a bit since it was created in the 1930s by the Bonzini brand and its 1959 design, has also become well established in industries. Like its fellow gaming devices, the pinball machine – a French word borrowed from the English word meaning “beater” and denoting the small spatula that returns the ball – has gradually been living there the “our homes and businesses”, as we imprint ourselves definitively in our memories. As a family or group, Enter Dogs is a great opportunity to invest a small room in a good dose of privacy.
The exhibition “Insert Coin” can be found until June 30 at the Monnaie de Paris. (PARIS MONEY)
From 7 years old, until June 30, 2024
Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 6pm, late night Wednesday to 9pm.
An entry ticket gives access to the museum, exhibition halls and includes game pieces : full price 12 euros (includes 10 game pieces), reduced price 6 euros (includes 10 game pieces), free (includes only 2 game pieces)
2024-04-24 10:28:24
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