Overview:
Located in public spaces where people spend their leisure time, table soccer, or foosball offers a rare opportunity for strangers to meet and interact physically in a culturally neutral activity. Many variations on the standard game have been created that take advantage of current technology in robotics, video tracking, and virtual worlds. We believe that these “enhancements” actually hinder the experience of these chance interactions by being too distracting of the physical experience itself (Stiff People’s League), or by eliminating the human-human interaction completely ( KiRo). We propose to reconfigure the standard foosball game into a two-person art-making machine.

Concept:
To illustrate the art making potential of the foosball table, we replace the figurines with famous artists throughout history. The game is played as normal. Ball-tracking technology will be used to determine the trajectory of the ball as well as the identity of the artist who last kicked the ball. After each goal, a drawing will be created that includes the entire trajectory of the ball as seen from above. The line segments composing the drawing will be distinct styles based on whichever artist kicks the ball. After four goals the drawings will be printed out on archival paper , each image the size of a business card, and dispensed out the side of the machine in a similar manner to photo booths. The participants will have a physical record of their interaction and will have to decide who gets what drawing. These are limited edition prints that can be signed by both players, even possibly facilitating the exchange of email or phone numbers. The drawings can be taken home and hung on the wall, on the fridge, etc. or can be displayed together on the wall of the pub overlooking the table.

References:

T. Weigel and B. Nebel, KiRo - An Autonomous Table Soccer Player, in: G.A. Kaminka, P.U. Lima, R. Rojas, RoboCup 2002: Robot Soccer World Cup VI, 384-392, Springer-Verlag, 2002.

MIT Sociable Media Group, Stiff People’s League, Ars Electronica 2007.