SUPER iam8bit is more than the name of the fifth edition of a popular indie-art extravaganza, it's a celebration of our culture's video games, which takes place at its eponymous venue's retro-gamer paradise of a multimedia company. Having recently completed renovations on 4,500 square feet of production and event headquarters in Echo Park, and on the eve of Chronicle Books' release of a hefty tome of the same title, the iam8bit crew's self-described “precious, video-game retro-ness” is coming into its own. The situation over at iam8bit is a sort of prodigal, the-kids-are-all-right tale in which old-fashioned squaresville values of patience, hard work, creative problem solving and savvy branding peacefully coexist with slacker irony, tight jeans and joysticks. With more than 100 visual artists embracing their generation's common visual heritage of now-obsolete technology, this exhibition accomplishes more than a nostalgic class of Donkey Kong reunion — it's also a deftly curated consideration of a major dialect of our contemporary visual vernacular. And today it's also a temptation for reckless truancy, as the iam8bit headquarters opens its doors for a special afternoon reception for anyone willing to blow off homeroom and hit the arcade. We won't tell.

Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Aug. 25. Continues through Sept. 10, 2011

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