Lets-Play-Ancient-Greek-Punishment-Art-Edition-Edition

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  • Gaming philosopher Pippin Barr takes on the art world

    by 
    Jessica Conditt
    Jessica Conditt
    01.14.2015

    Again. Pippin Barr – game developer, philosopher, artist – has launched a game within a picture frame, complete with the player's own reflection transposed in real-time over the glass. The game is a snippet from one of Barr's earlier works, Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment, and it uses the camera on your computer or mobile device to throw your own image over the top of the action, as if you were staring at the piece of art in a well-lit gallery. Barr's inspiration stems from an exhibition of his work at Australia's Andrew Baker Gallery late last year. He took a photo of a print of his Prometheus scene in Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment and imagined turning the photo itself into a game, he says. "So I made a version of the Prometheus game that runs 'inside' the picture frame," Barr says. "To add to the effect, I also worked on ways to make the digital version of the frame picture reflective in the way it was in the gallery. This extends to (in the best scenario) a live webcam-based reflection that works on desktop versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Opera, a video-based reflection that works in Internet Explorer and Safari, and an animated image-based reflection in mobile browsers. It was quite the technical challenge for me, working with new web technologies I've not encountered before." Play Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Art Edition Edition right here in your browser, or here on your mobile device. Or, see it in action in the video below. It's a fairly cool experience, even if you'll never win the game. Seriously, you won't.