Interactive art invites the audience to participate and decide the outcome of the experience. This engagement often makes the experience memorable and exciting for the spectator.
Playing Democracy 2.0 is such an installation exploring the principles of democracy with a large-scale, four-player Pong game.
Created by designer and creative technologist Ling Tan, Playing Democracy 2.0 builds on an earlier version first exhibited in the Barbican Centre. Tan’s work revolves around technology and civic issues, and she says the game represents the interplay of individual and collective goals in democratic systems.
Playing Democracy 2.0 comprises two projection beamers, two Kinect cameras, and a large 7.5m screen or wall. The cameras track the players’ movements using 3D depth tracking. The players are paired in twos and control the game paddles by moving up and down one of four marked sections. The app uses the open Kinect for Processing library.
When a team scores a point, they can decide to alter one of six game rules representing the principles of democracy: fairness, freedom, equality, rights, transparency, and accountability.
Some rules directly impact the gameplay, such as the “fairness” rule, which can give the winning team longer paddles. Others affect gameplay subtly and can have unintended consequences, like the “transparency” rule, which adds hidden paddles to the winning team’s corner.
Playing Democracy 2.0 explores how players on the same side of the playing field would work together to achieve a common goal. The players on the winning team can choose to modify the rules collectively or separately. If they do not cooperate, the game falls apart and everybody loses.
Tan says the game “brings into question ideas around social structures, our collective responsibility and agency in participating, the implications of consensus and our interactions with each other.” Through what looks like a fun pastime, players can “collectively experiment with different forms of social structure.”
A national anthem is played throughout the game. When the rules change, the anthem of a country with a similar democratic structure is played. The countries are grouped based on International IDEA’s 2023 democracy assessment report.
A team wins Playing Democracy 2.0
The game ends when either team scores 5 points. The rulesets for the last 9 games are displayed on the screen, with a democratic index also derived from IDEA’s report.
Like Pong, anyone can play the game. Players of all ages can appreciate the mechanics of moving the on-screen paddles with their bodies, without being aware of the social issues highlighted.
Kids playing Democracy 2.0
Tan made a few observations watching the players. Children were always eager to play the game, while adults were often apprehensive to play in front of a gathered crowd. The size of the crowd also influenced cooperation across teams. Players often chose more extreme game rules when there was a large crowd around.
Tan says most games ended pretty low on the democratic index, suggesting that people were very “interested in breaking the system to see what new interaction comes out of it.”
More information about Playing Democracy 2.0 can be found on Tan’s website.
You can see other interactive art projects, like the Photon 2 Lander, Quick Fix, and the Visitors Magnet.