“Behind the Backglass,” an exhibit celebrating women who shaped pinball, opened at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda on Friday, June 13. The exhibit features eight pinball machines on which women made a significant contribution or had a major influence.
“I’m really proud of this exhibit and everybody who worked on it,” Executive Director Evan Phillippe said at the grand opening.
Phillippe described how the exhibit’s concept started with the 1980 Xenon pinball machine. Its music, sounds and vocals were created by musician and sound designer Suzanne Ciani, and the game was the first pinball machine to feature a woman’s voice.
“This really started with Xenon,” Phillippe said, “And it really spiraled into something much larger and more important, and we feel very politically pertinent at this period of time.”
“It was really cool to kind of go back,” Museum Manager Brianna Devlin said. “We looked up a lot of the women who either provided a lot of artwork, or provided a lot of mechanical engineering or software design or sound for these games.”
In addition to Xenon, the games include “Spectrum,” “Eight Ball Deluxe,” “Theatre of Magic,” “Doctor Who,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “Dolly Parton,” and “Algar.” Female engineers, programmers, artists, and even pop culture icons such as Dolly Parton are highlighted. In addition to playing and reading about the games, videos showcasing Suzanne Ciani and the creation of Xenon’s sound and music can be viewed.
“I hope that people appreciate and recognize not only the woman who did work in this industry and did make so many of these many iconic games, but I hope they take it into their own lives and start to recognize the many things women do in their own lives,” Devlin said.
In attendance at the opening was Katie Hauerkamp, a regular who comes to the museum several times a week. “I was really excited to see [Sound of Xenon] because I am a musician myself,” Hauerkamp said. “Exploring the synthesizers and how the music responds to how the game is going is really cool, that’s kind of unique.” She was excited by the exhibit’s theme and said she hopes it encourages more young girls to pursue education and careers in STEM.
“Behind the Backglass” replaced the “Pointy People” exhibit, which had been on display for four years at the museum prior.
The Pacific Pinball Museum is a nonprofit organization, located at 1510 Webster Street.
Vicky Nguyen is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Vicky-Nguyen.
