This gets to the heart of what makes the collected Vectorpark works so special. "People above a certain age will look for clues before they do anything." "People under a certain age are much more willing to just start touching things and playing around," he says. I wondered if he fretted about fine-tuning Metamorphabet for younger users? Just the opposite. And Smith's latest work, an interactive alphabet for the iPad, is yet another welcome breath of fresh weird arriving in decidedly un-weird times. To his small but enthusiastic band of fans, this exquisitely crafted weirdness is what makes every Vectorpark release a cause for celebration. They're just there, crisp and flat, waiting to reveal themselves-but only if you make the effort. Smith's enigmatic games never explain what they are, or how you're supposed to play with them. The strange little interactive things Smith is making today aren't much different from the strange little interactive things he was making in 2000, when he first started releasing Flash games under the name Vectorpark. At least that's the impression you get looking at his work. Like a monk on a mountain, Patrick Smith seems to have been oblivious to it all. Everyone became obsessed with making things smart and seamless and intuitive. Smartphones arrived, bringing new possibilities and priorities. The web retired its drug rug, grew up, and got a job.
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