ON THE BALL (THE GAME HAS BEGUN. “BEWARE CROSSING THE GRID”)
On the Ball (The Game Has Begun. “Beware Crossing the Grid”), 2006, Individual exhibition at Bangkok University Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand. 12 TV monitors, steel and wood stand, 2 TV monitors for the TV game, rubber matting, 2 projectors and transparent screens, sensor camera and computer control system. Adjust to site.
On the Ball (The Game Has Begun. “Beware Crossing the Grid”) employs common elements of popular games, and invites the audience to consider the validity of comparing life to a contest. In the “game,” two members of the audience operate TV game monitors with which they control the opposing teams in the game “Pong”—one of the earliest video games in the world. When audience members unknowingly step onto a grid space, their positions are projected onto large screens and displayed as yellow bricks which obstruct the movement of the ball. Unwittingly, they become players within the “game.” On a terraced “stadium” echoing sports arena bleachers, 12 TV monitors display images of excited and focused spectators. Thus, the gallery space is transformed into a competitive field, and an ordinary audience becomes a proxy for the realm of cultural and mass media. This work was inspired by events in 2005 and 2006, when political problems in Thailand became difficult to solve by existing systems.