2019
Two-channel video installation, workshop, playing games in public
Video still
The boy’s hand writes about the political in the representational mediums. The other boy’s voice describes three different ways of relaxing: in the jacuzzi, trough massage and in the sauna. The group of five boys wearing masks eat pizza in the park. In front of a white wall, one by one enacts actions from the video games that they regularly play.
By filming the authentic reactions of the group of young boys inside of Mrša’s directed structure, the video merges the borders between documentary and fiction and without the aim to hide its apparatus, operates as the generator of experience for the ones being filmed. After books, comics, music, and movies, video games joined the mass media formats that influence youths’ upbringing, their understanding, and their desires. “Are you sure you want to leave the game?” stages a space and time to reflect upon the connections between video games and a subjectivity.
“In this last, distorted situation, when the boys become avatars of their characters, their bodies – guided from the outside as hybrid configurations – appear as a surplus, a sign without meaning, materiality with inhibited emotions. The avatar-boy, therefore, becomes a melancholic figure that allows for subversive comprehension.” Curator Irena Bekić
The participants in the film are Oleksandar, Nino, Liam, Karlo and Borna, who were joined by Domagoj, Luka, Frane, Tomislav and Kristijan at the workshops.
Photo by: Jasenko Rasol
The quotes used in the video “Are You Sure You Want to Leave the Game?” have been taken from the exhibition catalog “Games and Politics” produced in collaboration between Goethe Institute and ZKM | Center for Art and Media.
Cinematographers: Petra Mrša and Tamara Dugandžija
Editor: Lea Mileta
Sound designer: Miro Manojlović
