Zen for Pong

I like this academic essay by Jason Wilson paralleling the achievements of video art pioneer Nam June Paik with those of Ralph Baer, the grandfather of Pong.* An inspired comparison.

...like Paik’s TV artworks, Pong transforms the TV from a receptive, broadcast oriented ‘window on the world’ into a monitor for local, participatory activities. This is the first mass technology which, parallel to TV, turns TV into a monitor, and remakes it as part of a modular system, whose images are open to alteration by means of local technologies and actions. The consequences of this resonate still, not only in game design, but throughout our entire contemporary systems of leisure and work, including the field of production called new media art.

It's posted as part of the exhibition Pong Mythos, produced by Berlin's Computerspeile Museum.

Link: selectparks - Belated Pong Mythos Coverage at Leipzig.

*(Ok, if you want a war connection so it fits on this blog: Baer developed his TV Game while working for Sanders Associates, a military contracting firm.)