Roland Graf: Solar Pink Pong Awarded at Japan Media Arts Festival
Solar Pink Pong, the street game and interactive art installation created by Stamps Assistant Professor Roland Graf’s artist collective Assocreation, received an excellence award in the entertainment division at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival. With 4,417 entries from 87 countries and regions, this festival is one of the biggest and most respected media arts festivals in the world. It honors outstanding works in the four divisions of Art, Entertainment, Animation and Manga and provides a platform for appreciation of the Award-winning Works.
The awards ceremony will be held Tuesday February 2, 2016 at the National Art Center, Tokyo. A jury of distinguished artists, game designers, and curators wrote in their statement about Solar Pink Pong:
Many of us have childhood memories of reflecting sunlight with a handheld mirror, sometimes tickling 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. A physical device that is independent of video projection. Versatile design that can be carried and mounted anywhere. Autonomous system that requires only sunlight. The instruction-free friendliness with which the light approaches 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, etc., separate this project from a game contained inside computer graphics. No two setting is ever the same, making the game even more enjoyable.