Plinko Poetry
- 2012 -
An interactive interface allowing users to playfully re-arrange Fox News and NYTimes tweets into a black out poem.
Plinko Poetry is an interactive installation that allows users to create black out poetry using current NY Times and Fox News tweets. The interface allows people to remove words from their original context and becomes a playful and satirical reminder of their meaning. Plinko Poetry was named Gizmodo’s ‟absolute favorite” of the ITP Spring 2012 Show and picked up by Creative Applications, FastCo Design, Engadget, MAKE, and The Verge.
▶ Role: Concept, Art Direction, User Experience, Fabrication | Technology: Processing, oF, Arduino, Python ◀
Team: Inessah Selditz, Deqing Sun
Interview with Engadget
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In the interview we cover the inspiration for Plinko Poetry– the Price is Right and blackout poetry. Deqing and I also go through the concept, user experience and technical design.
Early prototypes and testing
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The plinko machine was built twice– the first time we quickly built the machine once we had an idea of what it should look like. We based the design from researching videos and images and tailored the dimensions to overlay the LCD screen. The first one we laser cut masonite pieces and CNC’d the two layers of plexiglass. On the right is the first version of the machine we used for testing.
Testing different camera filters for color tracking and then calibrating the color tracking between the camera and frame. The yellow circles indicate that the camera is sensing which pegs it has it and which it hasn’t.
A Collectively Created Corpus of the News
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It also is a collective poem- a new corpus of ever changing text formed by co-creation. In this day with a host of online publication tools such as Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube– anyone can be a published author in a matter of seconds. We thought we should take advantage of that and allow people to create and publish their poems on Twitter, reflecting the way people consume text. In the end the nonsensical nature of the poems highlight the absurdity of today’s media and reflects the zeitgeist of current and past news with humor and subversiveness.
