labor conditions

ARTICLE: THE LABOR OF GAME IN FELIX KLEE'S COSECHA MECÁNICA

Is appropriating a video game that glorifies capitalism to frame the delusions of the American Dream the ultimate subversive act? Felix Klee’s Cosecha mecánica creates a counter-narrative about labor, productivity, and exploitation.

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Created by Felix Klee in 2020, Cosecha mecánica (née Stoop Labor) is a short black and white machinima depicting several non-playable Latino and Latina characters working in the fields as American propaganda celebrating cheap Mexican labor plays in the background. At one point, a field worker sings “Lo que quiero es una máquina lechuguera” ("All I want is a salad harvesting machine").

Cosecha mecánica questions the relevance and function of so-called non-player characters (NPCs) within computer games (and the game industry as a whole) through the example of Latin American field workers in the globally successful video game Grand Theft Auto V. Their portrayal reproduces and simultaneously critique existing power relations. Cosecha mecánica — which was presented at the 2020 Milan Machinima Festival — climaxes with a NPC worker fleeing the scene and observing a derailed freight train from atop a hill, a metaphor for the disruption of supply-chain and the logic of “business-as-usual”.

Mechanical harvest - the literal translation of Cosecha mecánica - is a reference to the labor practices of the North American agricultural industry, whose workforce is almost equal in size to the so-called digital workforce, according to Nick Srnicek (Platform Capitalism, 2017).

Cosecha mecánica juxtaposes the propaganda film Why braceros? (1962) produced by the Council of California Growers to justify the “bracero” farm labor program to Californians who felt threatened by the influx of workers crossing the border from Mexico, contemporary audio field-recordings, and background characters of a video game to provide a commentary on labor practices in the XX and XXI centuries. For the record, between 1956 and 1959, over 400,000 Mexican workers were recruited by North American farmers to work in their fields: the program was discontinued in 1964, when Congress decided not to extend the law. Incidentally, sixty years later, immigration still plays a key role for the agricultural industry in the United States.

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EVENT: VRAL #14_MARIO MU (NOVEMBER 27 - DECEMBER 10 2020)

ARCHITECTURE WITH GAMES IN THE TITLE

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18” (3x6’), 2020 (Croatia)

Created by Mario Mu, 2020

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

Architecture with Games in the Title focuses on the convergence between spatial memory and the architecture of games through the narrative framework of a dialogue. Mu compares the casualties of financial crises to video game players, forced to navigate a rigidly controlled “gamified” setting where trial-and-error is glorified as the only way to reach symbolic “achievements”. Created with Unity 3D, the scene depicts an office space replete with desks, computers, chairs, and other amenities of the modern working environment. Walls appear and disappear depending on the location of unseen characters, the “flexible workers” of the neoliberal world. This is a space without shadows, at once bright, warm, and phantasmatic. As the unseen characters engage in a conversation about architecture and memory, bots and ghosts, the environment slowly burns. 

The artistic practice of Croatian artist Mario Mu revolves around projects which are often constructed as extended gaming platforms. In addition to sound and drawing, his preferred media often include elements of game design, 3D animation, and performance. A student of Hito Steyerl, Mu received an MFA in Berlin from the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin in 2017, a BFA with a major in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, in 2015, and an MA from the Faculty of Graphic Arts in 2012 from the same institution. Between 2016 and 2017, Mu was an active member of the Research Center for the Proxy Politics in Berlin. He has been working on several LARP events as an author, collaborator and/or performer at Play Co London and Zagreb, Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, Galerie gr_und, Acud, and UdK in Berlin. Mu is currently working on a new game project initiated by the Portuguese artist Odete and supported by Maat Museum and Boca Bienal.

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