Voices of VR #1688: Hacking Gamer Hardware and Stereotypes in “Gamer Keyboard Wall Piece #2”
Dec 7, 2025
In this conversation, Dutch artist Sjef van Beers delves into his creative journey with the Gamer Keyboard Wall Piece series. He explains how he transforms RGB keyboards into animated displays, discussing the intricate hardware hacking involved. The talk also covers the intersection of gamer culture and politics, exploring empathy in online interactions and the rejection narrative surrounding gamers. Sjef shares insights on curating digital artifacts and previews his innovative projects like hacked self-scanners, making for a thought-provoking exploration of contemporary digital art.
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Keyboards As Low‑Res Screens
- Sjef van Beers turns RGB gamer keyboards into low-res displays by replacing PCBs and driving LEDs as pixels.
- High frame rates and LED placement let moving text read clearly despite low spatial resolution.
Behind The Hardware Hack
- Sjef describes collaborating with Jelle Reit and Ibo Ibelinks to replace keyboard circuit boards and add Ethernet ports.
- They scanned original PCBs, designed new boards with microprocessors, and fitted LEDs in the same positions.
Video‑to‑LED Pipeline
- The work maps video frames to LED coordinates: a script samples every frame and writes color values for each LED.
- The Raspberry Pi reads long color-value files and streams RGB values (0–255) to the LED string.
