Open-ended Stories

The rendered spheres of video games are an attempt to recreate fantasies of our world as superlatives. However, these interactive moving image excesses usually end at some point, becoming fragile at their borders. Wallpapers with painted skylines, mountains or oceans are mounted to their edges. These fascinating open worlds, which seem to extend into infinity, are amazingly modelled on their physical-real counterpart and even exceed it – a pastiche of the Earth, that is, an imitation that emulates and alienates its template. However, other games truly never end, stretching into infinity with the help of procedurally generated galaxies. Sometimes the hinterland beyond the frontier territory becomes subject to other, extra-terrestrial laws: stones float in the air or sunken islands of past times suddenly appear.

Takeaways:
Enter the body of an owl and fly beyond the limits of physical laws. Together with Total Refusal, you will learn to appropriate games in the open-world video game Red Dead Redemption 2 and repurpose them for artistic, activist or nonsensical projects.

Duration:
2 h

Materials and knowledge required:
none