WiiSpray: Graffiti without getting arrested

By Leslie Katz on 30 April 2009, 10:33am

If blank walls tend to stir your graffiti urges, the Nintendo Wii may soon offer a solution that doesn't involve arrests of any kind.

Students at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, have come up with WiiSpray, a concept interactive game that uses a Wiimote plugged into a special spray can. Players get to unleash their artistry on a virtual canvas.

That canvas "allows the user to decide what is saved and what is discarded, all the while keeping the surrounding area clean and free of what otherwise would be a messy form of media", according to media students Martin Lihs and Frank Matuse.

The Flash-enabled software offers a range of colours, plus many interchangeable spray-can caps, along with the option to incorporate personal photos, graphics and backgrounds into the setting. The buttonless controller, with a USB port for charging batteries and updating firmware, is said to sit comfortably in the hands of both righties and lefties.

The project has led to some interesting online discussions about whether such a game would lead to less real graffiti because people would have an outlet, or more real graffiti because the practice would become more familiar.

Watch the video below to see a teaser of the students' final presentation.