The Grannies
February 12 - June 12 2024
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Flinders Street, Federation Square, Melbourne, AU 3000
Australia
The Grannies (2021) is a documentary short film created with/in Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018). A group of players — Marigold Bartlett, Andrew Brophy, Ian MacLarty, Kalonica Quigley & friends aka The Grannies — venture beyond the boundaries of the video game. Peeking behind the curtain of the game’s virtual world they discover a captivating and ethereal space that reveals the humanity and materiality of digital creations.
Originally presented in multichannel video format at ACMI’s 2023 exhibition Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Videogames, this boundary-testing artwork has since been adapted into an interactive digital incarnation by director Marie Foulston (V&A, Somerset House, Wild Rumpus) and creative technologist V Buckenham (Cheap Bots Done Quick!, Wild Rumpus, Now Play This). and can be watched online on the ACMI’s website until the Summer.
Through an artist’s lens, The Grannies offers rare insight into fractures in the veneer of seamless digital worlds.
Directed by Marie Foulston and edited by Luke Neher, the film was produced by Marie Foulston and Nick Murray. The Grannies premiered at IDFA in Amsterdam on November 18 2021 and was part of the official selection at the London Short Film Festival 2022. The Grannies was commissioned for Now Play This festival at Somerset House in April 2020. The film was also screened at the 2022 Milan Machinima Festival.
