Solar Pink Pong

Solar Pink Pong is a hybrid of a street and video game. Players of this game can interact with an animated pink sunlight reflection on the street using their bodies and shadows. The device that makes this game possible works autonomously and completely off the grid. It can be mounted on utility poles or building sides. This project aims at pushing the boundaries of video game culture outside of the living room changing the way humans see daylight through the lens of technology. The game references Pong, one of the first mainstream video games, and builds on Myron KRUEGER’s early artificial reality project Videoplace (1974). In this project, however, sunlight is reflected by a computer-controlled dichroic mirror, magically producing a colorful spot on the street like an animated pixel on a screen.
Materials: Computer controlled color mirror, computer vision system, solar panels.

Many of us have childhood memories of reflecting sunlight with a handheld mirror, sometimes shining the cheeks of the other with light. This work is the technological offspring of these memories.There are three types of interaction: Human to mechanism, human to nature, and human to human. The project also provokes unexpected interactions between pedestrians in various settings. It is a physical device, independent of video projection, that is versatile in design, and that can be carried and mounted anywhere. An autonomous system that requires only sunlight. The instructionfree friendliness allows the light to approach the player. These qualities are combined into a gaming device that is simple yet eye-opening. Physical and real-life characteristics like the sunlight and shadow, human gestures, variable settings, and others, separate this project from a game contained inside computer graphics. No two settings are ever the same, making the game even more enjoyable. (HIGASHIIZUMI Ichiro)