‘House of Kong’: How Gorillaz could put up the best rock exhibition ever
Right, hands up those who spent many formative hours on the internet, travelling through Kong Studios. I know I’m not the only one who devoted many a long night traversing the Gorillaz headquarters on the fully-fledged, point and click adventure game they’ve had as an official website for years – amazed, horrified and intrigued by the baffling world in front of me. One informed by anime, hip-hop, punk rock and several things that I was far, far too young to be exposed to at the time.
At a moment where artists have to be more online than ever, the avenues for creative freedom and creativity in that sphere are greatly lacking. Even if you’re the highest, most liberated level of artist who can dictate their own terms and not be bullied by your label into thinking more about TikTok than actual songs, what can you actually do? The era of the website is dead, and social media is more regimented than ever. You post content on them for likes and that’s it. On the other hand, Kong Studios was a relic of a different time.
One where the creative possibilities of the internet were being explored at the highest level. It was the same spirit that Trent Reznor tapped into to create the Alternate Reality Game surrounding the Nine Inch Nails record Year Zero. Despite people claiming that whatever goes on the internet is essentially immortal, the moment that the Kong Studios site was taken down, so too were hundreds, possibly thousands, of hours of writing, development and animation that hard-working people put their hearts and souls into.
While archived versions of the site are available if you look hard enough, it’s a sign that times change fast. If you don’t stop to appreciate what you have when you have it, pretty soon you won’t be able to anymore. So, imagine how intrigued I was when Gorillaz announced that, to celebrate their 25th anniversary, they will be staging their first ever exhibition. Its title? House of Kong. Sign me right the fuck up.
What are Gorillaz planning with ‘House of Kong’?
The short answer is we don’t really know. A press release tells us some pretty enticing stuff, like “Visitors to House of Kong will take a jaunt behind the curtain of Gorillaz’s extraordinary world. A journey through the band’s life of misadventures, musical innovation and ground-breaking virtual ways since these four outsiders—bassist Murdoc Niccals, singer 2D, drummer Russel Hobbs and guitarist Noodle—first came together to blow up a pre-digital world with the release of ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’ in 2000. An exhibition like no other, House of Kong is an experience for the brave and bold.”
It’s probably best not to get too excited by this project. It’s not going to be the punch-drunk style immersive Kong Studios of my dreams, but, compared to most rock exhibitions, this is going to be streets ahead. After all, the story of the band allows the creative team to do pretty much whatever they want. Gone are the days of finding a pair of jeans that some crust-punk swears blind were once gobbed on by Steve Jones, stuffing them in a cabinet and calling it “the immersive history of the Sex Pistols”; this could be something very special indeed.
What’s more, for the first time in a long time, it seems to be a Gorillaz project informed by both the musical and visual sides of the band. The brains behind the band’s visuals, artist Jamie Hewlett, has spoken candidly about how this hasn’t always been the case. In fact, the years Gorillaz have taken off have come from Hewlett getting annoyed at Albarn and their record label for treating him like nothing more than a cover artist and not one half of the band.
Everything points to House of Kong arguably being the ultimate expression of Gorillaz as an art project. One that doesn’t prioritise the music or the visuals but embraces both as part of the same whole, something that, previously, the band has only really been able to do with their spectacular music videos. Here’s hoping that the exhibit is an experience worth the quarter-of-a-century wait for it.
