Swings don't Swing

4 channel video installation, 2019

As part of the digital scenery, playgrounds are not really usable in shooter games. In their purely decorative role, the area intended for the children's game becomes a dead space. Four videos swing in the room. They document different attempts to interact with the dysfunctional objects, showing how difficult it is to actually play within a video game.

Swings don't Swings is 4-channel video installation that brings to light the intrinsic contradictions of video game environments, i.e. the designers' obsession to achieve hyperrealism and the Potemkin Village-like syndrome which informs their representational logic. Far from being functional, several simulated elements are just props: they look "real", but they do not perform as one might expect. Specifically, the collective underlines the complete lack of usability of playground structures within shooter games, where the function of swings and slides is purely decorative. Hence, swings don't swing, slides don't slide and carousels don't... well, you get the idea. Far from being interactive, virtual playground spaces are "dead space". (Matteo Bittanti)

Concept and realization: Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel, Michael Stumpf / Filmed in: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (Ubisoft 2017)