'Fargo Mario Wall'

You can take a warp pipe back to your childhood in Fargo, North Dakota, where two artists have collaborated on a mural of one of the most famous scenes in video game history. The artists call this interactive art project the “Fargo Mario Wall,” while others may consider it Instagram bait for elder millennials.

Although now a popular tourist attraction, the “Fargo Mario Wall” began life as a semi-guerrilla street art project by an artist couple who went by the handles “Dark Elvis” and “Icky Hiccup.” After an earlier mural project was covered up, the artists were convinced that they had to find a wall for their idea for a mural based upon World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros., and they connected with a Fargo-based community building organization, Folkways to complete the mural in 2018.

The mural consists of the beginning scene of World 1-1, where Mario encounters his first enemy, the Goomba, perhaps the single most-defeated enemy in video game history. Mario is missing from the work, to allow passersby to complete the image themselves. The interactive display allows visitors to choose to either stomp the Goomba, raise their fists to hit the power-up for a mushroom, or both.