---
author: admin
generator: pandoc
title: Guerrilla Pong
viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'
---
admin
2013-10-27T06:20:02+00:00
I came across these two webpages only just recently: Josh Nimoy's
[*MiniPong*](http://jtnimoy.net/itp/minipong/) and Hakon A Hjortland,
Havard Moen, and Alf Storm's unassumingly named [*5×7 LED dot matrix
pong*](http://heim.ifi.uio.no/haakoh/avr/).
The most immediate thing you&\#8217;ll notice about these two pong
clones is that they are *tiny*. Their display resolution can be counted
on fingers, and their hardware can be packaged into dimensions just as
unbelievably small. Ignoring any discrete components involved in their
construction, they, quite amazingly, only really need a [cheap
five-dollar
microcontroller](http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261090768825?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649).
The units seem definitely playable, and this really pushes home the most
important thing about these pong units: electronic communication is a
serious aesthetic medium with its own distinctness. Although this is now
obvious from the fact that everyone possesses a handheld computer many
hundreds of times faster than most home PCs from a decade ago, the
primitive concreteness of these tiny pong clones serves as a reminder
that the fantastic virtual worlds we now live in through our tablet
computers and smartphones are based on manipulating our physical
reality.
Take a look, for instance, at these two photos taken at (basically) the
same event, one captured 8 years after the other:
[![popebenedict-300x196\[1\]](http://doubledashgames.com/subdomains/exportingblogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/popebenedict-300x1961.jpg){.size-full
.wp-image-624 .aligncenter width="300"
height="196"}](http://doubledashgames.com/subdomains/exportingblogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/popebenedict-300x1961.jpg)
[![popefrancis-300x200\[1\]](http://doubledashgames.com/subdomains/exportingblogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/popefrancis-300x2001.jpg){.size-full
.wp-image-626 .aligncenter width="300"
height="200"}](http://doubledashgames.com/subdomains/exportingblogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/popefrancis-300x2001.jpg)
These two images place in stark relief the impact of the digital
technological revolution that has been undertaken over the last 30-40
years. These pong clones are significant in this light because they are
a reaction to the rapid digitalisation of everyday life. This is
especially true in Nimoy's case, because of its subversive message. The
purpose of *MiniPong* is that it is to be quickly and securely installed
into public places for mass attention. The transgressive act of
mutilating a piece of the public environment with an attention-arresting
electronic meme carries with it obvious political and ethical
overtones--who controls the information you receive?--what is it being
used for?
On this point the description of Nimoy's pong clone at an art exhibition
reads:
The present generation of new media artists espouse an approach that
is a reaction against commercial software-driven art. They have little
concern of the media critique of their immediate predecessors. Rather,
they dabble in commercial software critique, and see programming as a
means to become empowered.The result is a complete circle, where the
earliest analogue computer generated images of the 50s are duplicated
in the software art we see today. The pioneers of computer art have
always been writing their own software in the 50s and up until the 80s
before desktop computers and packaged software became broad consumer
products. Today, the reactionary artist resurges: the new Modernist
who seeks to liberate art from commercial media\_.\_
Aside from the social commentary of which these simple pong clones are
capable, it is not difficult to be very impressed at the ease with which
it is possible to clone, at a hardware level, a game that took the world
by storm forty years ago. You can do it for around twenty dollars, in an
afternoon. You can find a video of Hakon, Hardvard and Alf's pong clone
being
played [here](//jumpnshoot9000.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pong.avi%22)