skilltester city - sweet new collaboration

Skilltester machines became a fascination a couple months ago when it was revealed that Tony could win toys, seemingly on demand. He won a plush sheepdog first, from a lone machine at Market City in Chinatown one evening. We've since one a plush paddlepop stick, a cantelope, dumpling that doubles as a coin purse, a baby blue chef character and a bbq pork bun complete with pale pink cheeks and a little bow.

I'm currently working on a documentary of sorts with comic artist Matt Huynh. Matt's always been very encouraging of my work (he egged me on to approach the Council about my Neighbourhood Watch project, which made the difference between making a zine and having a Council sponsored exhibition!) and so when the opportunity came up to work together on a slide night at Carriageworks, we gingerly decided to give it a shot.

We're in the process of researching what we've called Skilltester City.

Skilltester City

There’s something alluring about the combination of bright lights, spritely major-key music and a vast array of plush goodies that has made Skilltesters an iconic arcade fixture.

But is there any skill involved in taking home a plush prize or are they a type of poker-machine targeted at lovers of all things cute?

Comic artist Matt Huynh and journalist Sonya Gee invest their precious gold coins and talk to punters, bashful boyfriends, Skilltester strategists and machine manufactures in their playful investigation of the game that’s become a test of masculinity for teen boys and men alike.

Last Saturday, our research took us across town, to three Skilltester locations (two had mysteriously been boarded up). We cashed our colourful notes for shiny coins and proceeded to lose about $15 between us. Our approaches were markedly different. I became emotionally attached to specific toys and would play the same machine relentlessly just to rescue it. In this instance it was a plush seal dressed up as a chicken. Matt would also pick a machine and play it relentlessly but his motivation was somewhat different. He wanted to win and walk away a champion, parading his toy around. So he spent his precious coins at the Maxi Claw. He caught it everytime but we never won it.

The investigations continued at Market City, in Galaxy World where we met a particularly vigilant skilltester minder, a lady in her 50s, who even gave us a free game. She opened the machines up frequently, fluffing up the toys and making sure they were all sitting upright and in a row. She was encouraging and gave most players free games, especially those who had played repeatedly for the same toy without winning. We saw the most wins there, Matt was so excited he cheered and punched the air when a trio of three Korean girls won one for the youngest, who appeared quite oblivious. She was probably 5 years old.

We've just finished interviewing a self-professed skilltester champion. He lived up to his reputation, rescued the plush seal I had my eye on and even coached Matt on his way to success. So in Matt's eyes I think the project is already a success, he just wanted to win win win!

Keep November 29 free, we'll be showing our doco at Carriageworks!

hello sandwich yay!

A few weekends ago, I met Ebony who writes the Hello Sandwich blog. Squish! She was having a garage sale in a pop up store in Annandale. The poster was promising and I had been wanting to meeting her for a little while, her blog is so amazing and regularly updated.


And so I woke up very early one Saturday morning, with the assistance of jackhammers outside my window - roadworks yay! and made my along to the sale. In true Hello Sandwich style, it was no ordinary sale, it was adorable!!!

Pics courtesy of Ebony B

Such a nice thing to do on a Saturday morning, so much so that I convinced Tony to come and visit Sandwich again at Kirribilli markets the very next day. Ebony's so lovely, she sent me a sailor hat to match the dress I bought from the sale and has been super helpful in helping me plan my Japan trip.

Yay Sandwich!

the boys

Earlier this year I went to Indonesia, for only the second time in my life to visit my family. My father originally came from there and his parents and siblings are still there. I travelled with the boys, my brother Derrick and my Dad. It was the first we'd travelled together in a good while, the first time as just the three of us and we did great. My brother and I took ample sneaky snap-shots of each other sleeping, pics that were hardly graceful. They humoured me as I took photos of my Totoro doll that belonged to my boyfriend in all sorts of ridiculous locations. We joked as we made it there the long way (a slight hiccup meant we'd missed our original flight a few days before), each meal was eaten in a different country.

This was taken, by chance, in Singapore airport early one morning as we were about to head to Malaysia en route to Indonesia. I love how similar their body language is compared to the choice of caffeinated beverage. I actually didn't notice just how mirrored they were composed until I got the photo back.

On the way home, we caught a plane that was only 20% full. We'd planned to stretch out to an aisle each after the plane took off but were talking too much the entire flight that we stayed in our sardine set-up.

hello again

I'm back and blogging, having finally given Blurty the kick (well at least for my blog anyway, the Matchbox Project still lives there) but not quite mustering up the energy to commit to a WordPress. They're so tricky! I've had a resurgence of blog love, well I've just been a blog mooch these past few months, greedily awaiting the next posts of Hello Sandwich and the newly returned Raging Yoghurt and I really missed posting pics and links to thinks I really like, stuff that doesn't necessarily fit in a matchbox :)

Image: The Dichotomy of Taste (2008) from Everything is Horrible by Lauren Hill.