Hadoken!!

I’m sure that at some point during your work day today, you were distracted and not on task (shame on you). You must’ve stumbled across the battle of the ages: Robert the Bruce vs. Aquarius. *Note: This stream is down!*

In case you missed it, Twitch hosted a Street Fighter match that was completely regular in every way imaginable EXCEPT the players weren’t human. They were fish. How did they train the fish to play the classic game? How could such a simple-minded creature tornado kick or hadoken? How could they pull off scarlet terror?

They didn’t. (subtext: Duh). Although it is infinitely entertaining to imagine these notoriously wonky-looking fish as Street Fighter characters. Without even looking, I bet if you google “Robert the Bruce Street Fighter” you will find a number of memes.

**Upon looking I was unable to find any! Shame on you, Internet.***

The tank was divided into actions and cameras were trained on the fish. As they navigated their aquatic habitat, they would unwittingly trigger an action from the original Street Fighter controls via the camera. Since the original actions in Street Fighter are not incredibly complicated, the fight was actually quite engaging. It was also riotously funny when they would swim into the ‘up’ section and their characters would just jump up and down endlessly.

At the time that I watched, Robert the Bruce was delivering uncompromising uppercuts to poor Aquarius repeatedly, which resulted in a quick KO.

I don’t want to write a think piece (groan) on this whole phenomenon, but this is a really interesting intersection of art and technology, at least to me.

The internet and 21st century technology doodads give us incredible new tools with which to express ourselves. That’s what we try to do at Wham City Lights: if everyone has a supercomputer in their possession at a live event, why can’t we use that as a canvas?

Check out this performance we did with the Kronos Quartet. Everyone’s smartphone not only displayed color, but also added to the cacophony of sound. People didn’t bring their own instruments (for good reasons) but we synchronized light and sound to create a beautiful piece of music that couldn’t have been created without smartphones.

There are so many more ways that technology acts as a canvas and as a tool. Deep down somewhere in all of us is a desire to create art and meaning. I think the tools that we’re using on a daily basis are becoming more creative and satisfy that need. That’s all. No LARGE LOOMING IMPLICATIONS. Just a thought.