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Real Life Game Of Tetris Played On The Streets Of Berlin

This is way more fun than the actual videogame.

Not too long ago, a group of Berlin artists ran onto the streets wearing Tetris outfits. Armed with the belief that art shouldn’t be taken too seriously, they hinged onto public space pieces like park benches, fountains, and square garbage bins. By conjuring up a little dance for the public, they fit together into a geometric conga line and posed for photographs everywhere from public parks to art galleries.

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Built out of foam and modeled after early editions of the infamous Russian video game, the project is spearheaded by Berlin-based artist and costume designer Anne Marina Fidler (who goes under the moniker Pixels are for Squares).

What began as a simple Halloween project quickly grew into improvisational street performance art. The Tetris crew won a costume contest at a bar and made a splash when they crashed the Nacht und Nebel art festival last month.

Fidler has a love for sweet surprises and clever ways to brighten the streets with digital nostalgia. She talked to The Creators Project about how this remarkable project came about and her future plans to take it further.

Creator’s Project: How did this come about, was it a street performance?
Anne Marina Fidler: I really like group fancy dress, like where a bunch of people are either wearing the same thing or on the same theme. I can't remember how I thought of Tetris, but the main reason I wanted to do it was to have a group of my friends all in something similar so we could run around and wreak havoc on Halloween.

Who are the fantastic performers we see in the costumes?
Anto Christ, an amazing artist who does some awesome colorful crochet pieces; Paulita Pappel, a film producer and adult performer; JO, a fabulous fashionista from London; Jessica Comis, a creator and promoter based in Berlin; Flavia Faas, a wonderful musician based in Amsterdam who just came out with a new album, and a few nights before the photo shoot with Christoph Neumann we did a walk about performance at the Nacht und Nebel festival along with my friends Nifi Seti from Berlin, Stefano from Amsterdam, and Marlo from Texas.

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How did the performers choose what color they wanted to be?
Well, the colors matched the shapes they were on the game (or at least one of the versions). I mainly asked what shape people wanted to be. Paulita wanted the 'S' and Anto wanted the 'Z." JO wanted the 'J' and I always wanted to be the T because it was my favorite shape when I was playing as a kid. Everyone else just figured it out while getting dressed.

Where did you guys go?
The first outing was on actual Halloween and there were only three of us. We just went to some tiny bar, knocked over some people’s drinks and won a bottle of vodka from the costume contest (woo!). The second outing was Nacht und Nebel, and we went to a bunch of galleries all over Neukölln and did a little mini performance. Usually people would laugh or smile, but in some of the more serious galleries you could tell they were a bit perturbed by our presence (which we thought was even better–we don't really like it when people take art too seriously!). Then for the photo shoot, we just walked from my friend’s house to my house in Neukölln, stopping at cool locations on the way.

What was the response like from people in the streets?
Most people thought it was great and hilarious. A lot of (younger) people thought we were trying to spell something, I guess because they are too young to know about the best video game ever! A few people were annoyed because we were taking up space and having more fun than them (HA!).

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How much of your work is driven by nostalgia, in a sense?
There is probably a lot of nostalgia in my work, even though I don't realize it. One of my favorite mediums is paper-maché which I still remember learning to do in pre-school. I also like a lot of obscure analog formats, old strange cameras and things. And a lot of my aesthetic is based on kitsch and colorful things from the 1950s and 1960s.

How do you feel about taking a retro video game and bringing it into reality?
My main memory for playing Tetris was on my friend’s Gameboy in the car, so it was always offline for me. But I always love making real objects and bringing things out of the digital realm. The art I make tends to be tactile and interactive to some extent, so it was a natural step.

How did you actually make the costumes? Were they meant for this or another project?
I've wanted to make these costumes for four years. I thought up the idea a few months after I left my home in London and moved back to the States. Because I was lacking a big group of friends (having just moved) I waited on the idea. The next three years I was on tour over Halloween (with my other project Bike Smut) so this year was actually the first year I had a chance to make my dream come true. The costumes are made of foam and then covered with fabric. I wanted to make sure they were comfy and people could sit and move as much as possible. I make a lot of strange things to wear, and I know I always have a lot more fun if they are durable and comfy! Finding the foam to make them out of was pretty hilarious. I found this guy on eBay and had to go to some random warehouse south of Tempelhof, but somehow between my bad German and his broken English I managed to get a great deal on a bunch of foam!

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Would you do this again? It is quite remarkable.
Oh course! I would love to bring them to some festivals over the summer or something.

Check out more pictures from this amazing outing below:

Photos by Christoph Neumann.