On a slightly smaller space scale than some of our other recent links but larger actual scale, CreativeJS’s very own Seb Lee-Delisle has created a real/virtual world crossover by re-creating a classic arcade game in his latest art project. Currently installed in Dublin Science Gallery, the Lunar Lander installation invites visitors to stand at an arcade machine and skilfully pilot a lander to safety on the lunar surface. While they play, the course they take is physically drawn onto the wall beside them by a robot-on-a-rope (Seb would probably describe it more convincingly in terms of motors and pulleys and whatnot).
The game itself is, naturally, made with JavaScript and inside the arcade cabinet, it’s running in Chrome in presentation mode. The arcade controls are routed into the browser using an arduino pretending to be a keyboard while the data is passed to the Processing app that is a web socket server.
This project is combining a lot of conflicting factors – a video game in a gallery; the latest technology used to create anachronous vector graphics; playing something virtual to create something physical – but that very chain of contradictions ends up, essentially, creating a piece of generative art that fits nicely into the gallery context. If you’re in Dublin before it closes, definitely check it out and try not to crash too badly. If you can’t make it to Dublin, you can console yourself with the game, at least. You could always play with a pen and a whiteboard at your side.
You can read more about the Lunar Trails project on Seb’s site or see other players attempts live at moonlander.seb.ly/viewer.
Most importantly, you can play the game yourself online at moonlander.seb.ly.