Total Refusal

An ethnographic exploration of the work and daily life of non-player characters, the digital extras in video games. Their labor loops, activity patterns as well as bugs and malfunctions paint a vivid analogy for work under capitalism.

The war zone of a dystopian multiplayer shooting game is used to embark some urban explorers on a winter walk, avoiding the combats whenever possible, as peaceful observers, inhabitants of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan.

A football team warms up for the World Cup final, a golfer gets ready to take his first shot, and a rally duo sets off on a test drive, while their audiences watch in eager anticipation. The air is tense, a storm is brewing, but all eyes remain fixated on the match. With masterfully manipulated footage from FIFA 23, PGA Tour 2k21, and DiRT Rally 2.0, Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein) lays bare the rules of the game.

Anti-war movie in the true sense of the word, searching for possibilities for peace in the most unlikely place of an online war game. It’s a tribute to disobedience and desertion — in both digital and physical-real warfare. Shot in the picturesque war landscapes of «Battlefield V», the hyperreal graphics become the backdrop for an essay-like narrative. The film revolves around the history of deserters — a part of human history, which has hardly been illuminated. Performances and creative interventions explore the scopes and limits of the audiovisual entertainment machine.

It's an ordinary day in the game GTA V – but the car-crowded streets are marked by a grave absence. Protagonist Edgar searches for clues, revealing the beautiful yet nightmarish nature of his reality.

This short film/video installation uses anecdotes that gamers share on internet forums to reflect on the feedback between the world of dreams and the video games.

Everything started with a utopia. To end the antagonism between the oppressors and the oppressed, between the owners and the own-nothings. To create a society that would be truly free, equal and solidaric.

The constructedness of the digital firmament becomes visible and points of contact between late capitalists, conspiracy theorist and romanticist world experience open up.