EVENT: YEAR OF THE ROBOT: THREE MACHINIMA SHORTS (OCTOBER 3 2023, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA)

As part of Melbourne International Games Week Film Series, ACMI’s curator Joni Maxwell presents three takes at AI’s effect on society, through the lens of machinima.

For the first time in Australian cinemas, a cutting-edge retrospective —curated by Jini Maxwell at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne — is set to challenge how we perceive video games in the context of sociopolitical landscapes. This showcase features three short films that employ screen-captured footage from popular video games Grand Theft Auto V and Battlefield to investigate the collusion between virtual and real-world politics.

The Year of the Robot is part of the Melbourne International Games Week Film Series, a three day cinematic and machinimatic tour de force situated at the intersections between video games and wider cultural phenomena. The series begins Sunday, October 1, featuring a dialogue between Summerfall Studios co-founders David Gaider, Elie Young, and Liam Esler, moderated by Jini Maxwell. The session celebrates the launch of their debut project, Stray Gods, a musical odyssey inspired by an array of multimedia influences ranging from television and cinema to stage musicals.

Continuing the program on Monday, October 2, is a screening of Andrew Bujalski’s cult movie Computer Chess (2013), a retro excursion into the techno-utopianism of the 1980s. Focused on an annual chess convention, the film captures the competitive spirit of software developers racing to create the ultimate chess algorithm. Notably, Computer Chess was filmed using a vintage tube video camera and employed non-professional actors with specialized knowledge in computer science.

Concluding the series on October 3 is the Year of the Robot screening, which includes three poignant short films that dissect how video games shape or are shaped by sociopolitical realities. Grayson Earle’s Why Don’t the Cops Fight Each Other? (2021) scrutinizes the coding of police behaviors in Grand Theft Auto V. Mathias Wolff’s It’s Just Math (2021) delves into predictive policing and its implications on Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour in Los Angeles. The program culminates with Total Refusal’s How to Disappear (2021), which contemplates the politics of combat desertion, using Battlefield (2002) as a case study.

Year of the Robot: Three machinima shorts

A machinima retrospective curated by Jini Maxwell

Part of The Melbourne International Games Week Film Series

October 3 2023

ACMI Museum

Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia

Featured Program

Why Don’t the Cops Fight Each Other?

Still from Why Don't the Cops Fight Each Other? (2021), Grayson Earle

Director: Grayson Earle

Year: 2021

Country: USA

Duration: 9’ 4”

Language: English

Format: Digital Cinema Package (DCP)

Grayson Earle’s groundbreaking work, Why Don’t the Cops Fight Each Other? (2021), explores the manifestation of the controversial "blue wall of silence" in Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V (2013). Over the span of nearly ten minutes, Earle conducts a desktop performance, capturing his meticulous efforts to deconstruct and modify the game's coding. Through this lens, Earle unveils how ingrained social structures influence police conduct within the virtual world, mirroring complex sociopolitical dynamics.

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It’s Just Math

Screen capture from Mathias Wolff's It’s Just Math (2021). Courtesy of the artist

Director: Mathias Wolff

Year: 2021

Country: Germany

Duration: 29’ 52”

Language: English

Format: Digital Cinema Package (DCP)

Mathias Wolff's It’s Just Math (2021) takes viewers to the fictional city of Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto V to present an experimental documentary focused on predictive policing. Wolff delves into the significant impact of these predictive technologies on the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) in Los Angeles. The film critically examines “Dirty Data” —data that is inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent — and discusses how its integration into predictive policing software perpetuates systemic biases against BIPOC communities.

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How to Disappear

Still from How to Disappear (2021), Total Refusal. Courtesy of the artist

Director: Total Refusal

Year: 2021

Country: Austria

Duration: 21’ 6”

Language: English

Format: Digital Cinema Package (DCP)

In How to Disappear (2021), media collective Total Refusal adopts a pseudo-Marxist lens to scrutinize the political implications of combat desertion in both real and digital spheres. Positioned as an anti-war narrative, the film grapples with the ethics and potential avenues for peace within the adversarial environment of the multiplayer war game Battlefield (2002).

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For more details about Year of the Robot, click here.

MEDIA COVERAGE: NEITHER ARTIFICIAL NOR INTELLIGENT: MACHINIMA IN THE AGE OF AI (ITALIAN)

What is the relationship between machinima and AI? A new article on Duels magazine provides an overview courtesy of T.L. Taylor, Marshall McLuhan, and Kate Crawford. Not to mention Ben Nicholson, Total Refusal, Andrea Gatopolous, Mathias Wolff, Sjors Rigters, and Kent Sheely.

Text in Italian

Read more

NEWS: MATHIAS WOLFF ON IT'S JUST MATH

“It’s Just Math is a 30 min experimental documentary that deals with predictive policing and its impact on everyday life of Black and People of Color (BPoC) in L.A. The film shows how so called Dirty Data are created through discriminatory policing practices and how the usage of this data within predictive policing software affects BPoC.

The main goal of the LAPD is to prevent crime with the use of data mining. But the predictions are only as good as the data that are fed into the algorithms which try to predict future crime patterns.

The police officer Tom B. explains his take on the predictive policing technology Gotham by the company Palantir. In his view Operation LASER (the LAPD’s strategy to prevent future crime) reduces upcoming criminal activities by analyzing past data and surveilling so called Chronic Offenders — people who are seen as the biggest risk factors.

Larry S. has had difficult experiences with the police even before this program started. He lives in an overpoliced neighborhood and has multiple unlawful police contacts on a regular basis that fail to have reasonable suspicion. He describes a police encounter that leads to an unjustified placement on the Californian Gang Database (CalGang). After that Larry receives a letter from the LAPD that states the reasons — none of which are true or justified with evidence.

Watch the trailer below

Like Larry S. Bryan A. is a long time resident in an overpoliced area and affected by discriminatory policing strategies. Bryan shares his story of being unlawfully included in CalGang some time after a police stop. He also describes how his cousin is arrested just because he was seen with a known gang member who happens to be a friend of his.

The local activist Jamie G. shines a light on the architecture of Operation LASER. She talks about how it’s made possible to create discriminatory dirty data that are manipulated by the LAPD and affect minorities from low-income neighborhoods. This role is based on the founder of the Stop LAPD Spying coalition from L.A. who successfully filed a lawsuit against the LAPD LASER program.

The former Palantir analyst and now whistleblower Kieran J. further reflects the LAPD’s concept and its logic of fighting crime that has not happened yet with data from the past which are mainly produced by the police. He guides through real LAPD documents that have been leaked. These reveal how the police create lists of high-risk-subjects — so called Chronic Offender Bulletins‘ — and also apply risk scores to people without a criminal record.

This is the only fictional character in the film that is not based on interviews or public statements.

The video images of the film were produced with a modified version of the game engine of Grand Theft Auto V. With this approach 'It’s Just Math' doesn’t just touch on stereotypes incorporated in the game but also bypasses viewing habits of the audience. At the same time the film blurs the lines between conventional documentary formats, game and film.”

(Mathias Wolff)

Watch It’s Just Math