As COVID came and pacified our movements, LIKELIKE, a space for independent games and playable art located in Pittsburg, found it natural to take their space online. Unlike many other art spaces that have done the same, LIKELIKE found their digital space to be more suited to presenting their works than their physical location. The browser-based games that the space specializes in lend themselves to be experienced individually in private spaces.

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LIKELIKE Online quickly expanded to include the online Museum of Multiplayer Art (oMoMA), a wing that combines the social nature of visiting an art space in person with the intimacy of experiencing the works from home on your own terms. At the oMoMA, you choose an avatar and step into several multiplayer rooms that subvert the nature of language and engage the user in play.

In the Family Room, you roleplay as a distressed housewife, as you step into a white picket fence home with pictures of you and the family at Disneyworld. In the VIP Room, your speech slurs as you down caviar tartines and gaze over a nighttime cityscape. You can also enter the Mirror Room, where your reflection gazes back at you and your words are thrown back in your face. 

With the chat function, you can speak to others you run into, emulating early internet chat rooms where anonymity lends itself to expression. The awkwardness and pressure of socializing and networking at IRL gallery openings are stripped away in this whimsical space where everyone remains anonymous.

Step into LIKELIKE Online and turn right to enter the online Museum of Multiplayer Art. The museum is best experienced with others, so we encourage you to set a time to meet there with a friend or simply go by yourself and make new ones.

Enjoy the work:
The Online Museum of Multiplayer Art 

About:

LIKELIKE is
A space for independent games and playable arts
A strictly non-commercial, artist-run endeavor
An attempt to reimagine the social dynamics of the arcade without nostalgia and commodification of play
A venue for projects that don’t sit comfortably in traditional art contexts and game industry events
A node in a growing network of spaces and events promoting an alternative, experimental game culture
A 20’x23’x12’ room in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA
A space committed to be inclusive and harassment-free

LIKELIKE is made possible in part by the Frank–Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry

LIKELIKE is
Paolo Pedercini – Executive Director

Tenley Schmida – Reluctant Director

Heather Kelley – Sensory Director

Website: LIKELIKE
Twitter: LIKELIKE