The Ampel Pong is an interactive installation in a traffic light. The kind of intervention is based on the popular computer Ping-Pong game.
The idea, in a few words, is a white light projection on the asphalt with which the passers-by can interact playing ping-pong in an original situation. It is only possible to play the pong game during the red light phase.
Motivations
- The lack of communication in public space. The first motivation was to generate it between unknown people.
- In the public space there are thousands of attraction points and it is very difficult to point them out. That is why these kinds of interventions are usually gigantic. The second motivation for this project was to create an easy and minimal way to make the passers-by participate.
- Another motivation was to generate funny experiences without complexity. Make passers-by to reflect and to react but with no intellectual effort from their direct participation.
Idea
The traffic light is the right context for these motivations. In this location there are groups of unknown people just waiting. The passers-by are there. It’s not necessarily to attract them. That place is part of any walking time.
The traffic light is the perfect place, because it creates an ideal situation for a game: people face to face. And that is exactly what is needed for this project. A game is an entertaining way of communication.
Why the Pong game?
Because the period of the red light lasts no longer than one minute and therefore it is essentially to create an easy game with a quick understanding. The pong game is since many years very popular and common all over the world and the passers-by can participate without any efforts.
The prototype
All of these concepts have been realised by means of a prototype which was presented during the UDK winter semester exhibition.
The technical architecture used for this first presentation consists of the following elements:
