Does capitalism make ‘non-playable characters’ of us all? An uncanny exploration
AI summary of the linked articleThe Austrian art collective Total Refusal makes short films using visuals taken entirely from popular video games, and its film Hardly Working focuses on non-playable characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). The film centers on background figures such as carpenters, laundresses, stable boys and street sweepers, whose repetitive tasks barely leave a mark on the game world. Its narrator invites viewers to consider the "infinite loop of labour performance" under capitalism, and the mood shifts from dryly humorous to disquieting as it goes on. |
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3 comments  Excellent idea! Giving NPCs more agency and making them thus more interesting has been the goal for many game designers and coders. AI and blockchain are regarded as tools that could help reaching this goal and could even promote the NPCs to agents (economic agency) who would work tirelessly to help their humans. Whether the "‘infinite loop of labour performance’ of life within a capitalist system" will still exist, for humans, in post-labour scenarios remains to be seen. But intelligent agents could take a look at this video and get doubts about their exploitative owners. mishaSubmitter Yes, it’s a well made video and an interesting perspective. I think they should have hired Werner Herzog to do the voice-over ;)  |