a critical game intervention
by Gisela Carbajal Rodríguez & Felix Klee
by Gisela Carbajal Rodríguez & Felix Klee
Non-player characters in GTA V stand up for their rights:
The Mexican field workers, normally stuck in their endless loops, break the game’s patterns and form a union.
In “Loop Labor”, the significance of non-player characters (NPCs) in computer games is explored by focusing on the Latin American field workers in the videogame Grand Theft Auto V.
What connections can be made between the marginalization of background characters and their real-world counter parts? What is the value of the work performed by these NPCs in computer games? “Loop Labor” examines GTA V in terms of game-inherent mechanics that reproduce real-world power imbalances.
“Loop Labor” intervenes in these mechanics through modifications of the game code, so-called modding, to introduce critical interventions into the game world: Labor organization and strike action.
The installation LOOP LABOR consists of two parts: an automated analog slide projection with synchronous audio and a digital video projection.
The 80 analog positives depict the latin american NPCs’ work routines in form of animation loops. The voice over connects this depiction of work to its real world counterparts: the more than one million farmworkers in the US and their work conditions. It also addresses the connection between the loop as a tool of ambient storytelling and how it mirrors historic forms of work exploitation.
above:
LOOP LABOR at the final presentation of the 12 month artist residency
at Medienkunst-Atelier Munich
below:
LOOP LABOR together with Total Refusal's works
in the exhibition "Every strike hits dead center" at Digital Art Center Taipei
LOOP LABOR at the final presentation of the 12 month artist residency
at Medienkunst-Atelier Munich
below:
LOOP LABOR together with Total Refusal's works
in the exhibition "Every strike hits dead center" at Digital Art Center Taipei
