How do thousands of mouse pointers moving at the beat of a song look? You can find out the answer for yourself in this new interactive crowdsourced music video by Amsterdam-based Studio Moniker for a song called “Kilo” by Dutch band Light Light. The Do Not Touch website loads up the interactive video where the movements of your mouse are tracked and your cursor is visible on-screen to other people around the world who are also participating.
First, you’re told that your mouse will be tracked, so it won’t be mistaken as an invasion of privacy that you’re totally unaware of. Once the video gets going, you’re asked a few personal questions, like where you’re from (showing an image of a world map, which you then hover your mouse over), whether you’re a man or a woman (showing male and female figures), whether you prefer men or women, and so on. Then, you’re instructed to follow the green visuals on screen as the song plays in the background. Moving your mouse in a maze-like fashion, you’re taken through this interactive world.
If you’re wondering why Studio Moniker decided to create a music video out of a myriad of mouse pointers moving in unison, the website’s info page reads: “After 50 years of pointing and clicking, we are celebrating the nearing end of the computer cursor with a music video where all our cursors can be seen together for one last time.” As of this writing, the video has seen 52,578 pointers – most moving en masse to follow the green visuals, others moving around aimlessly – with the number growing steadily.
More and more people are giving up traditional computers for touchscreen devices like tablets, and even those who have desktops and laptops often browse the Internet or do work via their mobile devices. Research firms forecast an even worse dip in PC sales this year, whereas things are looking quite rosy for the tablet industry. We don’t know if we’re actually “nearing the end of the computer cursor” or if that will ever happen at all, but this is a fun activity to do nevertheless.
