Wh-wh-who-whoa! What just happened? A couple of us at Giz just woke up from some Inception-like mind warp this week. Did we just overrun a Lower East Side gallery, fill it with the best, most coveted gear and exclusive exhibitions before clearing everything out, painting over the walls, and sweeping up mountains of broken glass, wire clippings, assorted lego pieces, and BLOOD? In just seven days? Madness.
Let's let the numbers tell the tale. Over 8,000 people walked through Gizmodo Gallery's door last week. We made 7,345 pancakes—beating our 2009 record of 6,433 by almost 1,000 flapjacks. More than 4000 people logged on to Gizmodo.com to play a 2000-pound Santa Claw.
Yep, I just checked my Instagram photos, and sure enough, Gizmodo Gallery invaded White Box last week. We installed the beautiful Vitsoe shelving system, stocked it with the best gadgets of the year, the most covetable products from all over the world, and an exhibit of classic designs—from the original Polaroid Camera to the first Apple Macintosh—that changed the way we look at the world. I'm still outta breath and behind on sleep.
Oh and we threw some big parties, too. Yup. Lots of people, lots and lots of alcohol, lots of fun, and some visiting dignitaries to boot!
Steve Wozniak (WOZ!) was kind enough to stop by for our opening soiree, featuring a performance by multimedia remix pioneers the Eclectic Method. Woz showed us his cool watch, drank a few beers, and even entertained some lovely ladies, which, let's face it, we had no business hanging out with. Thanks for stopping by Woz!
Nerf was kind enough to give us a boatload of blasters to give away at our reader meetup. Readers stood out in the rain waiting for the opportunity to shoot us in the face. They succeeded at this gleefully. And they kicked our butts at Street Fighter, too.
As for our big exclusive exhibits, the center piece was obvious: Real Art Design Workshop's massive Santa Claw, which ran with only a few hiccups nonstop for the whole week doling out prizes—including a life size Lego Santa Yoda—to players online. An intrepid team of Columbia Architecture students assembled a 16-foot-long Polymorphic Bench for us. The inventors at Breakfast delighted gallery visitors with Polaroid-like prints of the Instagrams they took in the gallery. We had an automatic nail painter, a huge home theater, a MakerBot, a 3-D Tour of the Universe and the world's largest multi-touch LCD display. Whew!
And of course none of this would have been possible without the hard work of teems of people. So many, in fact, that we've dedicated a whole post to thank them.
Make sure you check out the galleries of all of our Bestmodo, Past Perfect, and Desired exhibits.
Lastly, we'd like to thank all of the visitors who stopped by the gallery last week and all the readers who kept up with the coverage online. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we do this for you.
Tour all of Gizmodo Gallery 2011
This virtual tour also is iPad2/iPhone compatible, using the gyroscope to navigate. Big thanks to our friend Joergen at Joergen Geerds Photography for his amazing work at all our Gizmodo Galleries. More »
Tour Bestmodo at Gizmodo Gallery
There are heaps of very good products out there. Well done, people who make them! But in every category, one of them has to be the best. These are the Bestmodo. More »
Tour Past Perfect at Gizmodo Gallery
Some products of yesteryear fulfilled a singular need so well that perfection, in some small sliver of our existence, suddenly seemed attainable. They helped usher in a new epoch of product consciousness. Far from gone, their influence lives on in the countless derivations we all use every day. More »
Tour Desired at Gizmodo Gallery
Technology is beautiful. Products aren't just tools. They provoke your emotions. Sometimes a product beckons you. You want it. Not because you need it, or because it's expensive. Not even because it's the best. It speaks to you because of who you are as a person. Simply put: it's desired. More »
Read everything about the Gizmodo Gallery here and follow @gizgallery on Twitter. Special thanks to Land Rover - without them, there would be no Gizmodo Gallery.