Hardly Working
Total Refusal
Trailer
Presented only in theatres.
This film is part of the program OFFFFFFFIFFFFFFFA — Vertige de l’après demain.
Hardly Working sheds a limelight on the very characters that normally remain in the background of video games: NPCs. They are non-player characters that populate the digital world as extras to create the appearance of normality. A laundress, a stable boy, a street sweeper and a carpenter are observed with ethnographic precision. They are Sisyphus machines, whose labour routines, activity patterns as well as bugs and malfunctions paint a vivid analogy for work under capitalism.
This film is part of the program OFFFFFFFIFFFFFFFA — Vertige de l’après demain.
Hardly Working sheds a limelight on the very characters that normally remain in the background of video games: NPCs. They are non-player characters that populate the digital world as extras to create the appearance of normality. A laundress, a stable boy, a street sweeper and a carpenter are observed with ethnographic precision. They are Sisyphus machines, whose labour routines, activity patterns as well as bugs and malfunctions paint a vivid analogy for work under capitalism.
| Director | Total Refusal |
Session
• Agora Hydro-Québec (CO-R500), Pavillon Coeur des sciences
Saturday, march 15, 2025, 12:00 a.m. — 12:00 a.m.
Production
Total Refusal
The artist, researcher and filmmaker collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) appropriates and up-cycles contemporary video games and writes about games and politics. The collective’s themes are informed by critical game studies and social theory in an attempt to promote and popularize a counter-hegemonic left.
They also gain their inspiration from the gaming communities to practice “agitainment” — a synthesis of agitation and entertainment. By pouring post-Marxist analysis into the glossy world of video games, the collective aims to provide an accessible yet critical examination of mass media and its underlying ideological algorithms. Its work spans films, video art, live in-game performances, texts and educational initiatives. They call their films “Machinifestos” — political manifestos expressed through machinima. By bridging the worlds of academia, art, film and gaming, Total Refusal catalyzes a Marxist critique of society through playful, analytic and humorous practice in order to radicalize its audience.
Since its foundation in 2018, their work has been awarded with 65 awards and honorary mentions — like the European Film Award, Best Short Direction Award at the Locarno Film Festival, the Diagonale Film Award for the Best Short Documentary, the Contemporary Visual Arts Award of Styria and the Vimeo Staff Pick Award. Total Refusals’ work has been screened at over 250 film- and art festivals — such as Berlinale, Doc Fortnight at MOMA New York or at the Locarno Film Festival — and has been exhibited at various exhibition spaces like the Architecture Biennial Venice 2021, the HEK Basel and the Ars Electronica Linz.
Biographical notes provided by the program’s curator
They also gain their inspiration from the gaming communities to practice “agitainment” — a synthesis of agitation and entertainment. By pouring post-Marxist analysis into the glossy world of video games, the collective aims to provide an accessible yet critical examination of mass media and its underlying ideological algorithms. Its work spans films, video art, live in-game performances, texts and educational initiatives. They call their films “Machinifestos” — political manifestos expressed through machinima. By bridging the worlds of academia, art, film and gaming, Total Refusal catalyzes a Marxist critique of society through playful, analytic and humorous practice in order to radicalize its audience.
Since its foundation in 2018, their work has been awarded with 65 awards and honorary mentions — like the European Film Award, Best Short Direction Award at the Locarno Film Festival, the Diagonale Film Award for the Best Short Documentary, the Contemporary Visual Arts Award of Styria and the Vimeo Staff Pick Award. Total Refusals’ work has been screened at over 250 film- and art festivals — such as Berlinale, Doc Fortnight at MOMA New York or at the Locarno Film Festival — and has been exhibited at various exhibition spaces like the Architecture Biennial Venice 2021, the HEK Basel and the Ars Electronica Linz.
Biographical notes provided by the program’s curator
In the same session
Agora Hydro-Québec (CO-R500), Pavillon Coeur des sciences
Saturday, march 15, 2025, 12:00 a.m.
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