Game Art: Price Budget Boys' “Pac-Mondrian” (2002)

Piet Mondrian meets Pac-Man in the game Pac-Mondrian created by the group Price Budget Boys from Canada. The first version of Pac-Mondrian is from 2002 and is based on Piet Mondrian’s painting Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43). Mondrian was inspired by the city grid of Manhattan and the Boogie Woogie music when he made the painting. You play Pac-Mondrian as an ordinary Pac-Man game, but the labyrinth is made of the grids in Mondrian’s painting.

Price Budget Boys did three more versions of Pac-Mondrian (Detroit Techno (2005), Tokyo Techno (2006) and Toronto Techno (2006)). In these games the labyrinth are made up from maps of Toronto, Tokyo, and Detroit in the style of Piet Mondrian. Another difference is that you play as Ms. Pac-Man.

 “The hand-painted Pac-Mondrian Artcade cabinet reduces the sacred gallery to the funhouse arcade, and transforms worship into play by inviting the viewer to touch it. Rather than asking when a video game is good enough to be art, by declaring "Let's Play Art!!!!" Pac-Mondrian asks why can't art be as fun as a video game?” (from the  homepage).  (Mathias Jansson)

Link: Pac-Mondrian