Pac-Mondrian closes the perceptual distance between fine art and video games by combining Piet Mondrian's Modernist masterpiece 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' with Toru Iwatani's classic video game Pac-Man. The project offers gamers a chance to compete for $2000 worth of cash prizes for high score and level design.

view Broadway Boogie Woogie | view Pac-Man

Pac-Mondrian Video Game

When Piet Mondrian arrived in New York in 1940, he heard the Boogie Woogie piano of Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson, and from then on refused to dance to any other jazz, leaving the floor in a huff if the music didn't boogie.

After years of completely abstract work he abandoned the black grid to use yellow lines and red, blue, and grey colour blocks to build a representation of New York infused with all the vibrant kinetic energy of raucous road-house piano blues in 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'.

Pac-Mondrian transcodes 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' into a Pac-Man video game: the painting becomes the board, the music becomes the sound effects, and Piet Mondrian becomes Pac-Man.

Pac-Mondrian disciplines the syncopated rhythms of Mondrian's spatial arrangements into a regular grid, then frees the gaze to follow the viewer's whimsical perambulations of the painting: a player's thorough study of the painting clears the level.

Each play of the game is an act of devotion. Mondrian's geometric spirituality fuses with his ecstatic physicality when Pac-Mondrian dances around the screen while the Trinity of Boogie Woogie jazz play 'Boogie Woogie Prayer'.

Each play of the game is an improvisational jazz session. Pac-Mondrian sits in as a session drummer with Ammons, Lewis, and Johnson, hitting hi-hats, cymbals, and snares as he eats pellets.

play Pac-Mondrian in a new window | view Pac-Mondrian screen shot

Pac-Mondrian Level Designer

Video game modifications, or mods, offer creative gamers a participatory art practice to bring their own genius to preexisting video games. The Pac-Mondrian level designer is a paint program that makes game boards, and a level designer that mods a Modernist. The level designer starts with a blank white canvas, and the art player adds yellow roads, and red, blue, and grey pellets and powerups to make their own variation of 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'. Once the painter finishes their board, they can export it to Pac-Mondrian to play, and upload it to a server to share with other gamers.

view Level Designer screen shot

Pac-Mondrian ArtCade Game

A single fully functional Pac-Mondrian arcade game cabinet is being constructed for gallery installation. New graphic art has been designed for the cabinet that combines Pac-Man's graphic design with Mondrian's aesthetics. To remain consistent with Mondrian's practice and the gallerist fetish for originals and the hand of the artist, the side art will be painted.

view still from 3d Model

update: Cabinet has been completed and is available for installation on the Pac-Mondrian World Tour. Contact pacmondrian@pbfb.ca to bring the cabinet to your neck of the woods.

Pac-Mondrian Prt Scr Screen Prints

Computers have long had 'Prt Scr' buttons to create a print copy of the original screen. With Prt Scr Screen Prints, the reprographic technique Andy Warhol elevated to high art serves to combine technical writing’s screen shot document with a silk screen aesthetic in a PBFB pop party. A series of silk screen on canvas prints with hand-painted characters taken from screen shots of Pac-Mondrian games will be created for gallery installation.

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For the rhizome.org commission the Prize Budget for Boys will conflate the role of game player with that of viewer, competitor, level designer and artist.

Pac-Mondrian High Score Competition: Expert video game players are virtual virtuosos, playing the joystick with the creative intelligence wired into their nervous systems to create beautiful patterns on digital instruments. The competition returns Pac-Mondrian to the halcyon days of classic gaming, when superstar players dreamed of professional careers on the National Video Game team, dreams recently resurrected in awards for high scores at TwinGalaxies.com

A central server will accept high score submissions from players over a period of a week from the announcement of the competition, which will coincide with the opening of the show at the New Museum. To recognize skill and artistry in game play, the high score competition winner will be awarded $1000.

Pac-Mondrian Level Design Competition: The level design competition will be open for 60 days from the opening of the show at the New Museum. The designers of the top 100 boards as chosen by rhizome.org members will receive a complimentary Prt Scr Screen Print of Pac-Mondrian on paper. To recognize skill and artistry in level design, the winner from the top 100 as chosen by the PBFB will be awarded $1000.

Pac-Mondrian Installation: The Pac-Mondrian Artcade cabinet and a selection of Prt Scr Screen Prints will be mounted at the New Museum for the duration of the show.

Project Budget

The projected budget will allocate $2000 of the commission money to the prize budget for the level designer and high score competition.

The remainder of the budget will be used to offset costs in the production of the Artcade game and Prt Scr Screen Prints. Any additional monies required for the project will be provided by the Prize Budget for Boys.

Project Status

High Score Competition: The video game has been completed, along with a design for a high score server. Neil & Mike H will finish the programming.

Level Designer Competition: The level designer has been completed, along with a design for a database for players to store and access boards. Neil & Mike H will finish the programming.

Pac-Mondrian Installation: A cabinet and computer have been purchased, the art has been designed, and the cabinet has been stripped and primed. A monitor needs to be acquired, the side art needs to be painted, and the marquee needs to be printed. Screen printing supplies (canvas, paper, inks, stencils) need to be purchased. Ian & Mike B will finish the painting and printing.

Curriculum Vitae

The Prize Budget for Boys is an arts collective convened in Toronto in 2001 to make new media, performance, video game, literary, and fine art. The PBFB received a Canada Council for the Arts grant in 2002 to complete their online Clubhouse at http://prizebudgetforboys.com

Prize Budget for Boys

Fine Art
2003 Eye Scream, Virus Arts, Toronto
2001 SIFT: The Reading Room, ArtSpeak, Vancouver

Performance Art
2001-3 Spectacular Vernacular Revue presented at venues in New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Buffalo
2003 Imperial Globe Award Show presented at Toronto Social Forum

New Media Art
2003 Caffeine Screens Screen Saver Project, Instant Coffee, Toronto
2001-4 Flash animations in 'Cartoons' section of Clubhouse

Literary Art
2004 (forthcoming Fall) Spectacular Vernacular Revue Scripts, Roof Books, New York

Mike Brown

Mike Brown recieved his MFA in Electronic Art from the University of Cincinnati in 1994 on a full scholarship where he wrote his graduate thesis on technology and its relationship with religion. At school Mike worked on artist Benjamin Britton's Virtual Reality version of the Lascaux caves, and taught classes in Interactive art, 2D and 3D digital art and 2D and 3d Animation. Following graduation, he entered the video game industry and has worked on several top ten games in the last 10 years. Mike is currently a level designer at Digital Extremes, the studio responsible for Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

Neil Hennessy

Neil Hennessy graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor's of Mathematics in Computer Science and English Literature where he won the George W Hibbard Prize for Excellence in Shakespeare Studies. His poetry has been published in a handful of Canadian poetry journals and on subways and buses across Canada through the Poetry on the Way series, his interview with William S. Burroughs showed up in an anthology, his digital work has been published by UbuWeb (ubu.com) and Coach House Books, and he is a literary editor with The Queen Street Quarterly. He currently works as a user interface designer.

Ian Hooper

Ian Hooper graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts from Bishop’s University, where on the strength of his installation art pieces, he won the top prize for studio excellence. He continued to explore "artificial spaces" through his work with virtual reality and cybercafes at the University of Calgary where he earned his Master's in Industrial Design. He has worked professionally designing and printing everything from t-shirts and calendars to large-scale display signage and advertising copy for magazines and billboards. Aside from his artistic efforts, he has written about technology and culture for a variety of publications including MindVirus (A CD-ROM publication from Sydney, Australia) and Core Magazine (Calgary). Ian Hooper currently works as an information architect and user interface designer.

Mike Horgan

Mike Horgan received his Bachelor of Science with Honors from the University of Western Ontario. In addition to a degree in Computer Science with specialization in Software Engineering, he was awarded the University Gold Medal for top standing in his graduating class. With interests in computing, gaming, and psychology, he has been credited with AI programming on commercial videogames, worked on projects involving sensory entrainment, arcade-style reflex gaming, and database-driven community websites. He currently works as an AI developer for Digital Extremes, the studio responsible for Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

Tristan Parish

Tristan Parish edited two issues of The Capilano Review (2000), co-curated a show called 'Sift: The Reading Room' at Artspeak (Vancouver 2001), has had a critical piece on the show in Mix magazine, has been published in side/lines: A Poetics (Insomniac Press 2002), and was on the small mags panel at the TISH conference (Calgary 2001). Filler, a book combining the discourses of graphic design and political poster art, will appear from housepress in 2004.

Work Samples

JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine

Unreal Tournament 2003

Pac-Mondrian