Critical Digital Experience Talk + Scrapyard Challenge: Classic Arcade Game Controller Workshop
Join us for an exciting evening with Jonah Brucker-Cohen & Sebastian Bidegain, featuring an inspiring talk and an interactive workshop experience.
Jonah will present his projects under the theme Critical Digital Experience, showcasing creative, critical, and often subversive works that challenge how we interact with technology and networks, including:
⬩ “BumpList”, an email community for the determined
⬩ “Weapon of Protest”, a modified game controller that protests gun violence in the US
⬩ "Alerting Infrastructure!" a website hit counter that destroys a physical building.
⬩ “Killer Route” a GPS navigation system that integrates live crime data
⬩ “Human Error” a series of works that emphasize humanity’s inability to understand technical interfaces
⬩ “Critical Media Art Meets A.I.” a series of projects that challenge our use of Artificial Intelligence
⬩ “Environmental Inversion” a series of ecological interventions that subvert notions of climate change action
⬩ “ContactRot” an iPhone app that challenges our reliance on the cloud
⬩ “Alerting Infrastructure!”, a website hit counter that destroys a building
... and more!
You’ll also take part in the Scrapyard Challenge Workshop, where you’ll design and build your own arcade game controller from scratch — using found objects, recycled materials, and a custom-built interface board.
To make the experience even more creative and personal, we encourage you to bring your own “junk” — old tech, broken toys, furniture bits, or random gadgets 🧸🖥️🔧 — to transform into a one-of-a-kind game controller. We’ll have materials on hand too, so no worries if you can’t bring anything!
No prior electronics or coding experience is needed. Whether you’re a designer, gamer, artist, or maker, you’ll leave with a one-of-a-kind, working controller to play classics like Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter.
🎟️ Reserve Your Spot — Limited Spaces Available!
🌟About Our Event Leads
Jonah Brucker-Cohen is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor at Lehman College / CUNY. He received his Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin and his artwork has been exhibited at venues such as SFMOMA, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Art, MOMA, ICA London, Whitney Museum of American Art, Palais du Tokyo, Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, and more. His writing has appeared in publications such as WIRED and Make and his Scrapyard Challenge workshops have been held in over 15 countries on 5 continents.
Sebastian Bidegain (@voidfillstudio) is an artist and Design and Tech Lead at Cornell Tech's MakerLAB. He utilizes a range of techniques including 3D printing, mold-making, and electroplating to craft sculptures and objects. He enjoys repurposing electronics, breathing new life into them through whimsical designs such as his Gamecube bluetooth speaker (GAINCUBE). His portfolio includes lamps, furniture, jewelry, and wearable electronics, he has taught at Parsons School of Design, and has been showcased during NYCxDESIGN week. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voidfillstudio
📅 Event Agenda
4:30 PM — Doors Open, Light Food & Mingling
5:00 – 5:40 PM — Critical Digital Experience Talk by Jonah Brucker-Cohen
5:40 – 8:00 PM — Scrapyard Challenge: Classic Arcade Game Controller Redesign Workshop
8:00 PM – End — Wrap-up
🔍 Read More: About the Scrapyard Challenge
Scrapyard Challenge: Classic Arcade Game Controller Redesign Workshop, is an interactive workshop that allows anyone to create a novel controller for classic arcade games using a custom-built interface board and Raspberry Pi computers running Retropie Software.
The Scrapyard Challenge workshops are intense workshops started in 2003 by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki, ranging in duration from all day to several hours that focus on interface design through the use of found objects and junk materials. Since they began, the Scrapyard Challenge workshops have been held in 17 countries across the five continents of North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
The workshops began as a way of introducing interface design to novices without the need to learn electronics by supplying a custom built interface board that people could simply “plug” homemade switches and analog controllers into to create custom MIDI controllers, wearable devices, or public art installations. As the cost of game emulation decreased from standard computers such as Macs and PCs to microcomputers such as the Raspberry Pi, the workshop has evolved with these changes over its 20 year history and now allows for participants to build game controllers for classic games and consoles such as Super Mario Brothers (Nintendo Entertainment System), Street Fighter (Multiple Machine Arcade Emulator or MAME), Crash Bandicoot (PlayStation 1), and many other home arcade systems. The Classic Arcade Controller Redesign Workshop was started by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Sebastian Bidegain during the fall of 2022 and has been many times run in 3 countries since then.
Get a glimpse of the creativity and fun from past events:
Video 1: https://youtu.be/6lT4_s-A7Ug
Video 2: https://youtu.be/t4K82KDYi4Y
Video 3: https://youtu.be/4pELV6nhZDQ
Event Policies
Photography: Event photos may be taken and used for marketing and promotional purposes.
Cancellations: If your plans change, no problem — just let us know as soon as possible so we can offer your spot to someone else. Thank you for being considerate!