A two month installation show, The Claw was a part of the Rules and Play series of interactive installation art shows for RunJumpDev. The show was initially stalled because of COVID – the retrieval of the cabinets happened in early 2020, but the show itself ran in 2022 at the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center.
My role in the event was fairly vast. I was involved in the initial planning stages, purchasing the claw machines in an online auction, driving across the country to pick up the machines, helping to arrange gallery space, general show logistics as well. My work is on 5 of the 8 machines on display.
This text from a call for local artists to contribute to our one remaining non-altered cabinet gives a good idea of both what was made but also the scale of the cabinets:
Most of our machines are art pieces, from a rock garden that you rake, to a machine that prints the dreams of a possessed teddy bear but we are also working on one traditional claw machine that will act as a contrast to these more artistic pieces.
However, rather than filling the machine with AliExpress sourced stuffed animals, we wanted to focus on local art, games art, and stuff made from folks in the community that we’d love to highlight. All of our projects are collaborative, and this machine is a good chance to really highlight work from talented artists. If you’re interested in donating things, please feel free to contact Amanda at amanda@/supersoul.co (without the slash) or contact us on social media to arrange a drop off/pick up.
The claw machine that we’re using is a medium plush claw machine, so about what you’d see at a Denny’s or Steak and Shake (the machines we’re using here appear to have come from several Pennsylvania based Steak and Shakes). For scale references for what will work in a machine the easiest way to communicate these differences is through comparison – a small machine is something like a Grab-a-Duck which will puck up rubber duckies or candy, while a larger machine is something like this one, which provides 2-3 foot tall plushes or giant balls. Our machine is somewhat smaller and would be classified as “medium.” Best estimates as these things go are that anything probably larger than about 16 inches is likely to be too large, and anything below 6 inches will need to be inside something else (either box or capsule, more explained below).
After the initial gallery run, the machines attended MAGFest 2022 where they were well received.
While I worked on 5 of the 8 cabinets, the three primary ones that I handled were Oasis of a Dying Empire – a claw machine that also functioned as a rock garden, Specimen: Theo – a haunted cabinet with a plush that has alien desires, and 2 Player Has Entered the Game – a 2 player competitive game where players shoot ball pit balls between the two cabinets.
