Train Life Through a Gameboy Advance
A project simply titled Train (2003-2005) by Brooklyn-based artist John Klima lets users experience a fun train ride whilst picking up celebs and watching a Gameboy Advance all at the same time.
Take a 15 x 23 foot model railroad, a beach scene, blue waters, a cityscape and a Gameboy Advance and you get a fun and miniature, cinematic, mobile narrative. Visitors can navigate the landscape by using a cell phone to control each of the two trains as they travel around the track. The trains carry a Nintendo Gameboy Advance while in motion, which gives us a ‘view’ out of the train’s window. The graphics on the Gameboy are merely rendered 3D images representing the model scenery as the trains travel around. Viewers can make choices via their cell phone like the train’s route and where and when to ‘pick up’ the passengers. The best part is when two or more characters are on board the train, they can have a dynamically generated conversation overheard on the cell phone.
It’s highly imaginative and it lead me to think that the creator could’ve went so far as to install a mini-camera on the sides of the train which is hooked up to a video display device provided the proper outputs. Then you could get a true representation of what a train passenger might see.
Recent Comments