Stephanie Boluk, Patrick LeMieux, and Daniel Tankersley's "Pinball Wizard" (2014)

Another brilliant project by Patrick LeMeiux (an artist and game designer from Duke University), Stephanie Boluk (a scholar and media theorist from Pratt Institute) and Daniel Tankersley (an artist on faculty at Western Oregon University), Pinball Wizard pays homage to pinball machines with a self-playing modded installation that features an almost sentient Nintendo NES. The piece was part of the ongoing tilt/SHIFT exhibition at Western Oregon University's Cannon Art Gallery.

The project description is as fascinating as the piece itself:

"On full tilt, the flippers of this hacked pinball game tap to the beat of Morse code, spelling out lyrics from the rock opera Tommy (1969, In this early video Pinball Wizard simply alternates flippers instead of tapping out Tommy). Like The Who’s titular character, this Pinball Wizard generates an endless stream of gameplay independent from sensory input, devoid of awareness in its aleatory pursuit of new high scores. During the second half of the 20th century, pinball was banned in many states due to moral panic surrounding the uncertainty over whether pinball machines were a game of chance or a game of skill. Views have shifted. In July 2014, Valve Corporation’s videogame Dota 2 (2013) drew thousands of spectators to Seattle for their annual international championship. Similar to other professional sports tournaments, sixteen teams of skillful players spent hours immersed in play, practice, and public performance for the chance to win a prize pool of over ten million dollars." ( Patrick LeMeiux, Stephanie Boluk and Daniel Tankersley, 2014)

: Patrick LeMieux, Stephanie Boluk, Daniel Tankersley

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti