Who said that Pixel Art is only limited to computer screen? Give computer science students a building and what you get is thirteen storey high pixel art, more or less serious. Let's begin with the first kind:
Now, you might need a bit of explanation on what it is that you are seeing here (and in the photo below). These two buildings are student dormitories of Politechnika Łódzka, my alma mater that I still have love-hate relationship with. The images, created by students turning their lights on and off in an organized manner, were the part of mourning after John Paul II's death in 2005. In Poland it was fashionable to show the overwhelming grief at that time, so I guess students jumped on that wagon too and used dorms' surface to express it.
Fun fact: I have been copying gigabytes of porn in one of the rooms shown in the above photo from a friend who lived there - although not exactly at the time the photo was taken. Not sure how that relates to the whole mourning slash grieving after Pope's death phenomenon, but it was the first thought that came to my mind after seeing this (the second one being "wow, I wonder if some couples were getting it on in one of the dark rooms...").
Even though the previous example is relatively non-game related (still, pixel art!), it provides nice introduction to digital expression via building lights and from there I'll smoothly transition to a more advanced student project named Projekt Piwo (Project Beer) at Politechnika Wrocławska.
Unfortunately, those guys don't have any good photos on their website, but check the following two movies: one showing Knight Rider theme and the other one displaying a game of Snake. Right, so it's not really interactive though, it's just a prepared animation, but notice that they use two window / pixel colours: yellowish and red. I find it pretty cool, actually.
I bet that now you can't help but wonder - is there an interactive building display out there somewhere? Could we actually be playing Snake on the building? The answer to that is Blinkenlights:
Blinkenlights are taking window pixel art concept one step further. Not only can a user program what is to be displayed on the building via a dedicated application to program your their own display patterns, but also play a game of Pong or Tetris on the building front - read more about the games here. If you are into "All your base are belong to us" meme, you will enjoy the following Blinkenlights backstage video even more, but even if you arenormal not interested, do yourself a favour and have a look at how cool looks in action.
From mourning to arcade classics, the phenomena of window pixel art is definitely something I found worth of bringing to your attention.
Now, you might need a bit of explanation on what it is that you are seeing here (and in the photo below). These two buildings are student dormitories of Politechnika Łódzka, my alma mater that I still have love-hate relationship with. The images, created by students turning their lights on and off in an organized manner, were the part of mourning after John Paul II's death in 2005. In Poland it was fashionable to show the overwhelming grief at that time, so I guess students jumped on that wagon too and used dorms' surface to express it.
Fun fact: I have been copying gigabytes of porn in one of the rooms shown in the above photo from a friend who lived there - although not exactly at the time the photo was taken. Not sure how that relates to the whole mourning slash grieving after Pope's death phenomenon, but it was the first thought that came to my mind after seeing this (the second one being "wow, I wonder if some couples were getting it on in one of the dark rooms...").
Even though the previous example is relatively non-game related (still, pixel art!), it provides nice introduction to digital expression via building lights and from there I'll smoothly transition to a more advanced student project named Projekt Piwo (Project Beer) at Politechnika Wrocławska.
Unfortunately, those guys don't have any good photos on their website, but check the following two movies: one showing Knight Rider theme and the other one displaying a game of Snake. Right, so it's not really interactive though, it's just a prepared animation, but notice that they use two window / pixel colours: yellowish and red. I find it pretty cool, actually.
I bet that now you can't help but wonder - is there an interactive building display out there somewhere? Could we actually be playing Snake on the building? The answer to that is Blinkenlights:
Blinkenlights are taking window pixel art concept one step further. Not only can a user program what is to be displayed on the building via a dedicated application to program your their own display patterns, but also play a game of Pong or Tetris on the building front - read more about the games here. If you are into "All your base are belong to us" meme, you will enjoy the following Blinkenlights backstage video even more, but even if you are
From mourning to arcade classics, the phenomena of window pixel art is definitely something I found worth of bringing to your attention.
