A monochrome computer generated image showing a simplistic figure in the centre of a plain, with the traces of bouncing tennis ball paths

aaajiao, Tennis for None, 2016. Image courtesy of the Artist

aaajiao, Tennis for None, 2016

Artist: aaajiao

Title: Tennis for None

Year: 2016

Medium: Digital Video

Duration: 9 mins

Accession Number: US2017-01

Acquisition info:

Tennis for None was first exhibited at Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) in 2016, as part of Remnants of an Electronic Past, aaajiao’s first solo show in the UK.

“Tennis for none” (2016) is an installation that turns the earliest video game into a video projection. The original ‘Tennis for Two’, created in 1958, used a vacuum tube analog computer, most of which were destroyed during the 1960s. The game was fairly simple: two players would each control a knob and attempt to bounce a ball (displayed as a dot) over a net. Aaajiao has reimagined both players as machines. An endless loop plays of a ball bouncing into infinity, a game that involves no one.