riot

This work replicates a video game of the first person shooter genre, we invite the user to click on the screen to shoot, the “bullets” will be the news about the 9 prison massacres experienced in Ecuador between 2021 and October 2022 (by the date of publication of this work, two more attacks have occurred) and the comments of social media users who, interacting with this news, leave their opinions regarding the death in inhumane conditions of almost 900 people.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development:

According to the independent digital media GK (GK, 2022), the total capacity of the penitentiary system is 29,897 inmates, but there are currently 33,041 people deprived of liberty in Ecuadorian prisons. Where, until May 2022, 5 prisons in the country had more than 80% overcrowding. From 2021 to date, Ecuador has suffered 9 prison massacres, where around 400 people have died in inhumane conditions. Crimes against humanity in riots (such as beheadings, hangings, arson, etc.) are shared in live videos, WhatsApp chains and other media.

After reading Diana Taylor’s text about artist-artivists, I could not help but be inspired to try, through this work, to achieve a kind of protest and denunciation of this fact that challenges me. In this work I am interested, like Regina José Galindo, in using art to draw attention to the violence that surrounds us. I don’t think my work will change anything either, but I am convinced that I must do it, I must raise my voice.

In addition to an exponential security crisis and the ineffective action of the authorities in the face of this attack on human rights, public opinion spreads on social networks in comments that encourage and celebrate the death and extreme violence of these acts.

The scene in video game format in POV places the user as a character in this story, inside a penitentiary detention center. In the background you can hear the noise of the riot and you can see blood spilling on a wall. The user will have a gun with which they interact with the work, by clicking it fires and, at random, a newspaper clipping is shown (which gives context to the news of the crisis) or a comment from social networks referring to this news. The game doesn’t have a goal, you just shoot.

Although, as Gallanther quotes - based on Barthes - “The writer is dead; all meaning is created by the reader”, it will be the conditions of recognition that produce meaning about the experience that the work offers. This invites the audience to reflect on the concept of violence and its different means, exploring the relationship between what is represented on screen and reality, leaving open the question of why the game has no end.

LITERATURE GK. (2022). Las cárceles en Ecuador. GK. Obtenido de https://gk.city/las-carceles-ecuador/

GALANTER, P. (2011). «Entre dos fuegos: el arte-ciencia y la guerra entre ciencia y humanidades». En: Edward A. SHANKEN (coord.). «Nuevos medios, arte-ciencia y arte contemporáneo: ¿hacia un discurso híbrido?» Artnodes. N.º 11, págs. 33-38. UOC [Fecha de consulta: 07/11/22]. ISSN 1695-5951

TAYLOR, D. (2012). 8. Artivistas artistas-activistas. En D. TAYLOR, Performance (págs. 115-141). Buenos Aires: Asunto Impreso Ediciones.