PAUSE: The Mary Mack 5000

In Mary Mack 5000, an experimental rhythm game Eyebeam fellow Kaho Abe designed with Lina Fenequito, players wear special gloves and vests that are wired up to an Arduino board that senses their input. As guitars shred over the speakers, they run through children’s clapping games—Mary Mack, Patty Cake—and try to clap quickly, correctly, and on time. Each input is a collaboration. These games, usually the domain of little girls, are ironically reinvented with motorbikes, metal studs, and metal machine music. But it’s the videogame format, with its onslaught of feedback and promise of high scores, that brings even timid players together.

Photographs by Ryan Kuo