A Different Kind of Museum
Our recent visit to Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) was a sensory overload in the best way possible. If you’ve ever been, you’ll know that MONA isn’t your average gallery – it’s part subterranean labyrinth, part art experiment, part philosophical provocation.
Conceived by Tasmanian mathematician and art collector David Walsh, MONA invites visitors to wrestle with ideas rather than just admire objects. Ancient Egyptian relics share space with installations that talk about sex, death, technology and everything in between.
Descending into its sandstone halls feels like entering a creative underworld – one that challenges, surprises, and rewards curiosity.
But amid the weird, the wonderful and the downright puzzling, one installation struck a chord with us – a haunting, pinball-shaped meditation on control, mortality, and the human psyche:
New York artist Meghan Boody’s Deluxe Suicide Service.
When Pinball Becomes Philosophy
At first glance, Deluxe Suicide Service might make you do a double-take – it looks like a pinball machine, but something’s off. Instead of flashy lights and pop bumpers, the backglass features haunting photographic collages and medical apparatus. Cables, electrodes, and vintage imagery replace the familiar joy of the arcade.
According to Boody, she discovered the machine “in a pinball graveyard” and felt compelled to rebuild it into something entirely new – part sculpture, part narrative device.
“It is unclear whether the electrodes and X-ray cables fastened onto the image of the prone girl are sucking the life out of her or restoring her vital fluids”,
Boody explained in her interview with MONA.
That ambiguity is the heart of the piece. Is it a game? A medical ritual? A metaphor for the choices we make? Boody’s work refuses to offer an easy answer.
A Game You Don’t Win, You Understand
Pinball has always been about control versus chaos. You nudge, flip, and fight against gravity, knowing the ball will eventually drain. Boody takes that familiar rhythm and turns it into a meditation on life itself – the game of self-discovery, the illusion of control, the inevitability of surrender.
The machine’s photographic surface blends self-portraits, found images, and oceanic motifs, creating a visual swirl that feels at once personal and mythic. There’s nostalgia, yes – that satisfying pinball form, but also a psychological depth that lingers long after you’ve walked away.
Boody has said,
“If you don’t know who you are, if you don’t know about your dark compulsions, therein lies the road to insanity.”
Her reimagined pinball table becomes a literal machine for self-reflection, a device that asks: are you playing, or being played?
Our Take as Retro Gamers
As lifelong arcade and pinball fans, we were instantly drawn to the flippers, the lights, the mechanics – all the comforting signs of home. But Boody’s twist pulled us somewhere deeper.
It reminded us that gaming, especially physical gaming, has always been about interaction, emotion, and consequence. In Deluxe Suicide Service, those ideas are magnified, distorted, and transformed into art.
It’s as if Boody took the DNA of pinball – skill, luck, gravity, frustration, and used it to talk about being human.
🕹️ Why This Matters to the Ausretrogamer Crowd
For the Ausretrogamer community, Deluxe Suicide Service sits at the perfect intersection of mechanical nostalgia and conceptual innovation. It proves that a pinball machine – that glorious relic of the arcade age, can transcend entertainment and become something profound.
It’s a reminder that behind every cabinet, there’s a story about control, risk, and reward. Boody just happens to tell that story through a lens of mortality and transformation.
So if you love games that make you think as much as they make you play, this one’s worth the pilgrimage.
A Note on Safety and Interpretation
Let’s address the elephant in the room – the title. Deluxe Suicide Service sounds confronting, and it is, but it’s important to know that the artwork does not glorify or promote self-harm. Instead, it explores what it means to face dark thoughts safely through art and metaphor.
MONA’s curation is designed to guide visitors through difficult themes gently, and there’s always space to pause, breathe, and move at your own pace.
If any part of this topic feels distressing, please reach out for support.
Lifeline: 13 11 14 | Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Final Thoughts
Our visit to MONA reaffirmed something we’ve always believed at Ausretrogamer: the worlds of art and gaming aren’t separate – they’re deeply connected. Both explore systems, feedback, control, and consequence.
Meghan Boody’s Deluxe Suicide Service just happens to do that with one of the most iconic machines ever built.
So next time you’re in Hobart, take the ferry, head underground, and see this curious creation for yourself. It might just flip your understanding of what a pinball machine – or even a game can be.
image source: ACMI
image source: Lego Ideas