A 9-foot video game joystick now holds a Guinness World Record

A 9-foot video game joystick now holds a Guinness World Record

Mary Flanagan, an artist working in the field of augmented reality games such as Pokémon GO, had a vision in 2006 to create a method for bringing random people together to play a game. What is her plan of action? Create a nine-foot-tall video game joystick that will be inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2022 as the world's largest video game joystick.

Atari CX40 controllers are typically about the size of a standard Atari CX40 controller, according to Flanagan. The joystick, which was made of wood, steel, and rubber, was commissioned for London's House of Technologically Termed Praxis and can be found there. A touring exhibition of the work is currently on display at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany, and it has also traveled to Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Dartmouth College Professor of Film and Media Studies and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities, John Flanagan, explained that the goal was to take something designed for solitary play and scale it up to the point where it necessitated collaboration and brought people together. "The idea was to take something designed for solitary play and scale it up to the point where it required collaboration and brought people together," Flanagan said.

For her "engineering marvel," she collaborated with a team of expert fabricators at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York to create two massive crates that can be transported by ship.

"It's very difficult to get around," she said, according to CNN. "Between shows was always a hassle because I had to store my equipment in a storage unit at times, and at other times it was being stored in another country. Previously, it had been kept in the barn of a friend in upstate New York."

The joystick, which can be used to play classic Atari games such as "Breakout" and "Centipede," must be operated by a minimum of two people in order to be effective. Despite the fact that the joystick contains a miniature Atari, Flanagan asserted that the joystick could theoretically be connected to any other device.

"When you climb on it, a very high score in a game like 'Breakout' or 'Pong' is about 11, because people don't move that quickly when they're required to move their entire bodies," she explained. "When you climb on it, a very high score in a game like 'Breakout' or 'Pong' is about 11."

"Trying to coordinate with multiple people... slows everyone down and fundamentally alters our relationship to this familiar game practice, providing us with a measure of critical distance," the researchers write.

Flanagan began his career in the video game industry in the 1990s as a CD-ROM game designer, and he has worked in the industry ever since. Her other accomplishments include the creation of "[domestic]," which some consider to be the world's first autobiographical video game. Throughout her career as an author of several books about video games, Flanagan has pursued more creative interpretations of digital culture, such as the creation of games for social change or that address social issues – which, she believes, is precisely what the joystick does.

Flanagan was taken by surprise when he learned that his project had been recognized as a Guinness World Record. He had hoped to "produce a childlike scale" and "inspire discussion and group play," as Guinness put it. She stated that, in addition to bringing people together, her goal was to get them to defamiliarize aspects of their daily lives and make them "a little strange," which she described as "a little strange."

We can all benefit from artists' interpretations of pop culture and fun things in our everyday lives, as well as how they open our eyes to new ways of looking at something that is so familiar to us, according to her.

Flanagan pointed out that the joystick is not limited to a single generation, which is particularly important given how niche and trendy some older video games have become in the last few years. Compared to classic cars, which have gained in popularity despite the fact that they are rarely driven, she sees this as a similar phenomenon.

Everyone, she admitted, has fond memories of their first video game that they played on their home computer.

"What matters is that they are playing a game, be it 'World of Warcraft,' 'Fortnite,' 'Candy Crush,' or whatever they are doing with their game at the time. In addition, it introduces them to a new way of being in the world, and people recall those moments when they feel connected to their game, which is quite romantic." Flanagan believes this to be the case.

To this end, Flanagan is currently working on a project called "feminist artificial intelligence," which is a machine learning system that is trained exclusively on the work of female artists in order to uncover algorithmic biases. She hopes to demonstrate, through her joystick and current projects, how video games and their modifications can be essential tools for fostering meaningful interaction.

In her words, "games are almost like miniature universes in which we can imagine alternative futures." "It is my hope that, as a result of the game, we will feel more optimistic and that we will be able to overcome some of the obstacles that stand in our way of being together."