Mac DeMarco Computer Game ‘Automatic Painter MD’ Let’s You Make Digital Artworks
Mac DeMarco has put his computer programming skills back to work. This time around, he’s come up with Automatic Painter MD, a therapeutic to distract and help you get through the tedium of being in Coronavirus lockdown for weeks and weeks. The object of the game is to create trippy digital paintings. If you feel your design is worthy, you can send it to Mac to showcase in his online gallery.
The Canadian polymath is a real computer wiz. We first caught wind of his programming genius with Shave Me, a game where you shave Kirin J Callinan’s beard and also try to unlock secret portals. You can read more about that here.
Automatic Painter MD comes with a note that says:
Staring at the ceiling? Please, stare at this instead.
Automatic Painter MD pairs well with your personal choice of musical accompaniment.
The game, which you can download to your computer here, allows users to select different shapes and colors to manipulate. You can watch a demonstration below (it starts around 4 minutes into the video).
Mac developed both MAC OS and Windows versions of Automatic Painter MD, and you can create the designs using a keyboard or a gamepad. To access the control menu after launching the game, just hit return on your keyboard or START on your gamepad.
As for getting your painting in Mac’s gallery, send screenshots to camtonycamtony@gmail.com.
Automatic Painter MD isn’t the only thing Mac has been working on since Los Angeles (and most of the rest of the country) went into isolation. You can see the musician in the indie rock parody of Gal Gadot’s “Imagine” video. Eric Slick of Dr. Dog rounded up folks like Kevin Morby, Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, Caroline Rose, Natalie Prass, NNAMDÏ, and Mac to cover Blink-182’s “I Miss You.” You can watch the video here.
Mac has also been live streaming on his Cam Tony YouTube channel from his home studio whenever the spirit moves him. He just turns on the camera and captures himself fiddling around, creating various beats. His recent streams range from 2 hours to just under 5 hours. Baby’s All Right has roped him into doing one of his in-studio performances for their new venture, Baby TV. It’s scheduled to pop off on Friday, April 4, at 8pm. You can find out more about that here.
Also on Mac’s plate is an internet tv hosting gig for Eternal.TV. He is starring in a series called ASRT (aka Advanced Studio Recording Techniques). For the show, he will impart his DIY music studio wisdom. The first episode is on building an echo chamber. You can find out more about the show here.
Mac recently posted a video called “Lunch” on his YouTube where he soundtracks two people eating lunch. You can find this video below.
UPDATE April 3: Mac is doing an Instagram Live “Stay Away Show” for La Blogothèque at 3pm ET/12pm PT on Friday, April 3. Tune in at La Blogothèque’s Instagram. Announcement below.
Image credit: made by Mindy Bond using Mac DeMarco’s Automatic Painter MD