Art or Technology?

You will unlikely read this story on the front page of The New York Times.  Word of this “project” was spread by the Internet grapevine. Here it is.

Brown University’s Technology House (Tech House) provides living quarters for a diverse group of geek and geekette undergraduates. Although most residents are engineering and computer science majors, interests range from Russian literature to philosophy and art.

A few years ago, undergraduate Keith Dreibelbis came up with the idea of changing a side of the Science Library (high on a hill in Providence, RI) into an 11-story Tetris game.  It took a few years for the idea to take hold but the project caught fire in the 99-00 academic year.

What Is Tetris?

Developed in the earty 80s, Pong holds the crown as the granddaddy of graphical computer games.  In 1985, Alexey Pazhitnov created Tetris at the Moscow Academy of Sciences Computer Center. The game is remarkably simple yet frustrating.

In Tetris, odd-shaped blocks appear at the top of the screen. The player can rotate the blocks as they fall.  When a solid row of blocks (no voids) is formed, the row dissolves, and all the blocks drop down, making room for more. When new blocks cannot drop (because underlying rows have not dissolved), the game ends. Basically, the commands are: move left, move right and rotate. Simple.

With thousands of Christmas lights, soldering irons, spools of wire, a laptop, the Linux operating system (free) and a Nintendo controller, the Ivy Leaguers attacked the project. With participation reaching about 85 percent of the Tech House community of 35 residents, heavy lifting was carried out by a cadre of approximately 15 hardcore workers.

The undertaking was given the moniker Project La Bastille for no profound reason. Construction/programming was executed on a shoestring budget under $1,000. The building and shakedown phases were chronicled with photos posted on the web site.

At the heart of the project was the problem of rapidly switching frames containing over 10,000 lights (120V AC) with a small computer.  On April 14, the first official night, falling blocks of light could be seen from I-95 to Narragansett Bay. It was the largest art installation ever to appear in Rhode Island.

Initially, small glitches and cold, rainy weather greeted the industrious crew and visitors alike. Once it was determined Tetris could indeed be played on the building, however, the local press and the Internet community were notified of the achievement.

As word spread, the Tech House team learned from the Internet that a similar Tetris project (with a much larger outlay of funds) had been accomplished in 1995 at a Holland university. Neither this news nor a complete week of especially nasty spring weather dampened spirits. Local press coverage by The Providence Journal, a local camera crew from ABC and the rapid word through e-mail brought over 500 people to the Brown campus to play Tetris.

My Experience

I visited the web site expecting a live game at midnight on April 21. No picture.

After a 15-minute delay, live videocam pictures commenced. Play was underway.

The site carried the warning only the Netscape browser should be used. I found both Netscape and Opera V3.6 performed well.  I ran both browsers simultaneously (multi-tasking). With PaintShop Pro, I captured images on Opera while watching the action with Netscape until 1:45 am.

With the help of data generated by Net.Medic, it becomes immediately apparent why Napster (software used to trade MP3 files) is so popular on college campuses — Brown University has gobs of bandwidth to the Internet.

It became immediately apparent that these kids and visitors were having fun.  Games were short (usually lasting under ten minutes) with the gamester seated to the right of the videocam in the foreground and the building (game screen) off in the distance.

From watching the lights on the building, it was easy to determine when the person “on deck” was about to take control of the electronic artwork. There was a steady stream of gamers (between 30 and 40 percent female visitors or co-eds, by one estimate) and no break in the action.

The equipment worked flawlessly during the period. (Keep in mind, Tetris play had been underway for a full week prior to my arrival.)

On one occasion, the videocam captured a news crew videotaping the event.  An occasional umbrella gave testimony to the raw weather.

The PR Department

The next day I sent my observations and congratulations to the La Bastille gang.  Soren Spies, a Tech House senior, replied quickly. A follow-up phone call filled in details not available from the website description.

Spies expressed gratitude for the cooperation received from the Brown University administration. An unanticipated consequence of the local press coverage resulted in arrival of the City of Providence electrical inspector. Rather than play Tetris, he found deficiencies in the wiring.  Spies speculate that had the inspector been “brought into the loop” earlier, the wiring problem may have resulted in a different outcome.

In any event, the Tetris project is now down.  The videocam is off and the page is dark. The team hopes to have the electrical issues resolved and be back online for one more night, its May graduation.

The Tech House team received kudos and press coverage from around the world. Statistics from the web site reveal 70,000+ domains (unique visitors) observed the marathon play. BBC On-line, SlashDot, FoxNews.com, C|Net and other cyber publications announced the event to the Internet community.  Even Time Magazine reported the game.

On a 1 to 10 scale, Spies, a tough critic, gave Project La Bastille a 9.5. Six members of Tech House La Bastille team now prepare for final exams, graduation, and jobs in Silicon Valley or graduate school.

Was the project art or technology? Both. And it was fun both to play or observe from afar.

On A Sad Note

Phil Katz, the developer of PKzip, a PC pioneer widely recognized in the Internet community, died this week.  He was 37 years old.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org/

(This is the 203rd of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the Internet. Next, Crime Coverage on the Net is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.  Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found at http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)