Finding Shoreditch: art that should be a game part 73

'Tea Building' by Frank Kiely. Imagine it on the DS.

I must admit, this one's here mostly because I really like Frank Kiely's work - but wouldn't this make an amazing look for a PSN, DS or Xbox Live game? There are elements of Rez and a hint of Sega's DS dating sim Rub Rabbits. Kiely has a solo exhibition at the Ferreira Projects gallery in East London between January 17 and February 14 - a major part of it will be an 'interactive' painting of Shoreditch. I wasn't sure what was meant by the term 'interactive' so contacted the gallery's director, Christian Ferreira who told me:

"As with a lot of Kiely's work there will be hidden elements in it - similar to a Where's Wally book. The viewer is encouraged to locate these hidden elements and in turn examine the image - thus studying the local area, which most, often disregard. It is not intended as "treasure hunt' but ideally the viewer will look at the local area with renewed vigour. "

I like the idea of art that gets people to really look at and appraise where they live, and there's definite potential for a GPS/location-based game, based around encouraging players to explore and re-assess their surroundings. It's something that the pioneers of augmented reality are working toward - you may remember the augmented reality Pac Man game and I just mentioned WiFi Army in my last Technology column. One day every journey will be a game.