DESERTER

Self-executable modification of Armed Assault II: Reinforcements

In this work, the spectator confronts—and simultaneously assumes through their own perception—the ambiguous notion of video art or machinima, through the gaze of a virtual character walking in real time on an endless journey across a desert landscape.

The passage of time is perceived through climatic changes, the transition from day to night, and the retracing of the path itself.

The piece’s time zone synchronizes with that of the location where it is exhibited.

Deserter autoexecutes without player intervention, generating an autonomous experience in the very moment it unfolds.

The modification of the video game, whose settings are based on current Middle Eastern conflicts, grants the soldier a new orientation: an indeterminate gesture, somewhere between liberation and eternal confinement in that desert.