Yessi Perse: New Dark Age
NEW DARK AGE is a conceptual video game about what we call “Economystic” (the fiduciary economic system based on faith in the value of capital) and Techno-feudalism (the feudal power of technological corporations in the current socio-economic framework) that is structured in a journey through a cyber-medieval speculative scenario in which Big Tech Corporations have replaced the territorial nation-state model and run the world through the control of Big Data and corporate wars.
A walking simulator video game composed of 5 explorable levels corresponding to each of the five leading companies in the digital market: the MMAGA corporations (Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon). In the style of a first-person RPG, the viewer/player adopts the role of a USERF (USER+ SERF, servant) who moves through the data servers of these corporate kingdoms, getting to know their practices, rituals, laws, algorithms and feudal lords-CEOS.
NEW DARK AGE is a pilgrimage through this "New Dark Age" of information, where the contemporary fantasy of knowledge provided by technology brings the opposite: an era of uncertainty, post-truth, predictive algorithms and meticulous surveillance systems. In this New Dark Age capitalism has drifted into a neo-feudalism where corporations (data platforms) look like kingdoms, CEOS (CEOs) and IAS (Artificial Intelligences) act as Kings/Overlords and users as serfs/servants. Digital technology takes a dominant role, boosting the offshoring and precarization of the labor force; and where economics and politics are moving away from democracy.
The artwork materializes these issues in an experimental interactive artifact where these technological corporations are shown as sovereign kingdoms that fight (among themselves and with the Nation States) for the control of the users' data, subjugating them through a pact of "terms and conditions" by which users can use the lords' lands (Operating Systems, digital platforms, Social Networks, Search Engines, etc.) in exchange for cultivating them (the incessant production of content and information and the consequent datification of bodies).
ARTWORK TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION + CREDITS
Gamer Installation.
Interactive Virtual Reality Video Game (Made With Unity), PC Gaming with cybermedieval tempered stained glass, Meta Quest 2 Virtual Reality Headset, Techno-feudal video-tapestries, OST Corporate Hymns MMAGA (Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Google-Alphabet, Amazon), 5x 42" Screens, RGB LEDs, Chains, Sentinel Mecha Metal Framework, LARP Chainmail, Nazgûl Armor (The Lord of the Rings) and Mortal Sword (Final Fantasy VII).
YESSi PERSE (b. 2015, Internet) A.K.A. Jesús C González Fernández (b. 1989, Spain) & Miguel Gómez López (b. 1990, Spain) in collaboration with Shell Ocean [ Game developer - Tech artist ], Ricardo Llopico [ Stained glass Mondovitral ], Rroggerserretriccou + Carles Castaño + Albert Tarrats [ Metal Mecha Body ].
Produced by "Generaciones Prize" of La Casa Encendida, Madrid (Spain), 2023.