Chloe Desmoineaux isn’t your usual Counter-Strike player. I’ll cut to the chase: because she uses lipstick to play the game. As in make-up.
She calls it Lipstrike, and it uses a clever mix of basic electronics, key remapping and gun-based violence. I like it a lot.
Using a kit from Makey Makey, Desmoineaux hooked up the control board and some alligator clips to her lipstick. The mouse is used, of course: left click to move forward, right for aim-down-sights, scroll wheel to switch weapons.
But when she applies the lipstick, the connection in the Makey Makey circuit board is completed, which is linked via USB to input as a button being pressed... and the bullets start flying.
Desmoineaux explained her thinking in an email to Motherboard, pointing out it’s not exactly a serious thing – it’s just interesting and funny:
“Counter-Strike is one of those games that's mainly attributed to a male audience. Lipstick for girls, war games for boys. Fuck that! I can mix it up... If it visually works and the resulting effect is comical, maybe it’s because we all use shortcuts and stereotypes embedded in our heads. It's in this spirit that I got the idea for Lipstrike.”
You can catch up on Desmoineaux’s performances over on her Twitch channel, and she’ll be broadcasting new sessions over there until June.
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