Catch the Light
2016 | Art, Installation Art
Abstract
Catch the Light is three interactive sculptures combined with urban gameplay aiming to confront the common aesthetics of gaming, created for the DGI National Sports Event 2017. The striking sculptures are each providing three game types available with audible and visual feedback. Once a game is started buttons will light up colourfully and the participants will have to chase them in a high speed with increasing difficulty level.
Concept
The goal is to activate the participants physically in a playful and fully embodied way and catch attention through the combination of brutalist sculpture and classic gameplay, thereby challenging the common understanding of gaming aesthetics. The sculptures are heavy, dramatic, and with sharp edges, whereas a common game interface is designed to be practical, lightweight, and soft. The three sculptures have identical structures, but will be rotated in each their own way creating unique visual and functional expressions. The game is incorporated into the surfaces according to the rotation, granting variation in body movements for each sculpture. The game will increase in difficulty in proportion with the skill of the participants to create an ever challenging and interesting experience for spectators as well as participants.
Design
The design of Catch the Light is inspired from brutalist architecture to complement the industrial aesthetics and history of Stigsborg harbour front, with construction in solid concrete, further contrasting the usual perception of trivial gaming interfaces. Each sculpture will be between three and four metres in height with heavy and pointy surfaces stretching dramatically in various directions making its silhouette visible from the Aalborg side. The unusual play-buttons are integrated seamlessly into the sculptural aesthetics with copper frames to detect the touch of a hand and a plexiglass surface for the colourful light of the buttons to shine through.