The Line Between Interactive Art And A Video Game
People ask me this question more than almost any other: "So is it like a video game?"
I understand why. The technology behind The Table 30A — the projection tracking, the real-time responsive visuals, the sensor systems — shares a backbone with modern video games. The same types of cameras, the same programming languages, the same real-time rendering engines. If you look at the spec sheet, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm building a game you play at a dinner table.
I'm not. And the difference between what I do and what a game designer does isn't technical. It's philosophical. It's about intent. It's about what the technology is for, and — more importantly — what it's deliberately not for.
The line between interactive art and a video game is one of the most important distinctions in my work. Getting it right is what makes The Table 30A feel like an experience rather than a product.
Same Backbone, Different Intent
Let me start with what's shared. A modern video game uses cameras or sensors to track player input. It processes that input through software. It renders a visual response in real time. The player sees the response, reacts, and the cycle continues.
The Table 30A's interactive projection does the same thing. The system tracks hands, glasses, and plates on the communal table surface. It processes that tracking data through software. It generates abstract, colorful visuals that respond in real time. Guests see the response, react — reach out, move a glass, gesture to a friend — and the cycle continues.
Technologically, these systems are cousins. They share a lineage. The sensors I use come from the same manufacturing ecosystem as gaming hardware. The code I write uses many of the same principles game developers use. The rendering pipeline follows similar logic.
But the intent is completely different. And intent is everything.
A video game uses this technology to create a system of goals, feedback, and optimization. The player is trying to do something — defeat an enemy, solve a puzzle, reach a destination. The technology provides clear feedback on how well they're doing. The entire design is oriented toward engagement through challenge and reward.
Interactive art — the way I build it — uses the same technology to create a space of discovery, ambiguity, and emotional response. There is no goal. There is no score. There is nothing to win and nothing to optimize. The technology creates an environment where something unexpected can happen, and the value of that happening is felt, not measured.
How Interactive Projection Works At The Table 30A
Games Maximize. Art Restrains.
Here's the clearest way I can draw the line: video games maximize technology. Interactive art deliberately restrains it.
A game developer's job is to push the hardware as far as it can go. Higher resolution. Faster frame rates. More complex physics. More detailed environments. More responsive controls. The technology should do as much as possible, because the player's experience improves with every additional capability.
I take the opposite approach. My job is to figure out how little the technology should do.
The projection system at The Table 30A could render photorealistic imagery. It could display text, interfaces, menus. It could track every finger individually and map complex gestural commands. It could do everything a modern gaming system does.
Instead, it displays abstract visuals. Flowing color. Soft gradients. Shapes that suggest rather than define. The tracking is intentionally loose — it responds to general movement and presence rather than precise inputs. There is nothing to read, nothing to click, nothing to select.
This restraint isn't a limitation. It's a design choice. I intentionally use the technology the wrong way — or more accurately, I under-utilize it — because the moment the visuals get too detailed, too responsive, too game-like, the feeling changes. The guest stops experiencing atmosphere and starts looking for a user interface. They stop feeling and start thinking about mechanics.
The Role Of Digital Art In Fine Dining
There Is Nothing To Win
This is the simplest test I apply to my own work: is there something to win?
If yes, it's a game. If no, it might be art.
At The Table 30A, guests sit at a communal table for a five-course dinner. Each course is paired with a chapter of an original story. The interactive projection responds to the table throughout the evening. At no point does the projection present a challenge. At no point does it reward one behavior over another. At no point does it tell a guest they did something right or wrong.
The projection responds equally to a tentative reach and a confident gesture. It doesn't reward speed, precision, or skill. It simply acknowledges presence. It says, through light and movement, "You're here, and your presence is changing this space."
A game requires the player to learn its rules, master its mechanics, and optimize their performance. That's not what I'm building. I'm building a space where there are no rules to learn, no mechanics to master, and nothing to optimize. The interaction is the experience, not a means to an end.
Why This Distinction Matters
You might wonder why I care so much about drawing this line. After all, if the technology is the same and the guests are interacting either way, does it matter whether we call it art or a game?
It matters because the label changes the expectation, and the expectation changes the experience.
When someone walks into a space expecting a game, they immediately start looking for rules. How does this work? What am I supposed to do? How do I get better at it? Their mindset is analytical. They're trying to decode the system.
When someone walks into a space expecting art, they look, they feel, they wander. Their mindset is open. They're not trying to figure out the system. They're trying to experience it.
At The Table 30A, I need guests in the second mindset. If they arrive thinking they're about to play a table-sized video game, the experience doesn't work. They'll look for feedback loops that don't exist. They'll try to "beat" the projection. They'll be frustrated by the ambiguity that is, in fact, the entire point.
But when guests arrive open — when they simply sit down and let the dinner unfold — the interaction reveals itself naturally. They discover that the light responds to them. They play with it, gently. They share the discovery with other guests at the communal table. The interaction becomes part of the atmosphere of the evening, woven into the food and the story, rather than competing with them for attention.
What To Expect At A Table 30A Pop Up Event
Using Technology The Wrong Way
I sometimes describe my work as using technology the wrong way. Game developers would look at my projection system and immediately identify a dozen ways to make it more responsive, more precise, more feature-rich. And they'd be technically correct.
But technical correctness isn't the goal. The goal is emotional resonance.
I taught myself to code in coffee shops while on tour with bands, making stage computers talk to each other in ways they weren't designed to. That hacker instinct — take a tool built for one purpose and bend it into another — is the foundation of everything I build. The technology behind The Table 30A was designed for precise tracking and detailed rendering. I use it for loose, atmospheric, abstract visual responses. I'm deliberately under-utilizing it.
This is where interactive art and video games diverge most sharply. A game developer and I might start with the same tools, the same sensors, the same rendering engine. The game developer uses those tools at full capacity to build a system of mastery and reward. I use them at partial capacity to build a space of wonder and ambiguity.
Both are valid. Both are creative. But they are fundamentally different practices with fundamentally different goals.
Why Creative Technologists Are Hackers
The Dinner Table As Anti-Game
A dinner table is the worst possible setting for a game and the best possible setting for interactive art. That's not an accident.
Games require focus. They demand attention. They compete with everything else in the room for the player's cognitive bandwidth. If I built a game into the table at The Table 30A, guests would stop talking to each other. They'd stop tasting the food. They'd stop following the story. The game would consume the evening.
Interactive art does the opposite. It enhances everything else in the room. The projection at The Table 30A doesn't demand attention — it rewards it when attention wanders in its direction. A guest mid-conversation glances down and sees color trailing behind their hand. They smile, and they go back to talking. The art enriches the moment without competing with it.
This is why I chose a dinner table. Because eating, talking, sharing a communal meal — those are inherently social, unhurried activities. The interactive projection lives alongside those activities. It doesn't replace them, interrupt them, or gamify them. It adds a layer of beauty and discovery that makes the meal feel different from any other dinner the guest has had.
Jose Castro and I design every event as a complete experience — five curated courses, an original story, and projection that ties it all together. The food and the story are not sidecars to the technology. The technology is a sidecar to the human experience of sharing a meal.
A Different Kind Of Interaction
The interaction at The Table 30A has more in common with a campfire than a video game.
When you sit around a campfire, you watch the flames. You don't control them, but they respond to the environment — a gust of wind, a log shifting. The movement is hypnotic because it's unpredictable, organic, and unrelated to your performance. You're not trying to make the fire burn a certain way. You're just present, and the fire is alive in the space with you.
That's what I'm designing for. Projection that moves and responds and surprises, but never asks you to perform. Technology that's alive in the room with you without demanding anything from you.
Video games are extraordinary. I have deep respect for game designers and the complex, beautiful systems they build. But what I do is different. Same tools. Same technical vocabulary. Different intent, different philosophy, different outcome.
The line between interactive art and a video game is the line between an experience you feel and a system you play. Both use technology. Both respond to you. But one asks you to master it, and the other asks you to simply be present.
At The Table 30A, all you have to do is sit down, eat, and pay attention. The rest happens on its own.
Why Every Course Tells A Story At The Table 30A
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does The Table 30A use the same technology as video games?
The underlying technology shares a common lineage — real-time rendering, sensor tracking, and responsive visual systems. However, the way that technology is used is fundamentally different. Video games maximize these tools for challenge and reward. The Table 30A's interactive projection under-utilizes them intentionally to create atmosphere, ambiguity, and emotional resonance.
Is the projection at The Table 30A something I interact with like a game?
No. There are no goals, scores, or tasks. The projection responds to natural movements at the table — reaching for a glass, setting down a plate, gesturing during conversation. You don't need to learn how it works or try to "do it right." The interaction happens organically as part of the dinner experience.
Why not make the projection more interactive and detailed?
Because more interactivity and detail would push the experience toward feeling like a game or an app, and that would change the guest's mindset. I want guests to feel present and open, not analytical. The restraint is intentional — abstract visuals and loose tracking create atmosphere, while detailed interfaces create tasks.
What makes interactive art different from a video game in one sentence?
A video game asks you to master a system. Interactive art asks you to be present in a space. The technology may be similar, but the intent — what the experience is for — is fundamentally different.
Can kids interact with the projection at The Table 30A?
Yes, and children often engage with the projection more naturally than adults, precisely because they don't approach it as a game to decode. They simply reach out and play with the light, which is exactly the spirit the experience is designed for.
