The creators of The Buddhist, Bona Kim and James Borda, salvaged the old arcade machine from a garage outside of New York City and rewired and designed the system to reflect the philosophy of Buddhism. The creators designed the interactive art piece to draw participants away from the hero/heroin narrative usually displayed in such 80’s style arcade games, so as to let gamers reflect on the present moment instead. Although presented as a traditional game, the Buddhist journey behind the machine’s screen could not be controlled by participants, no matter which buttons were pressed.
