Serious Games I – IV

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Movie
Original title Serious Games I – IV
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2009/2010
length 44 minutes
Rod
Director Harun Farocki
script Harun Farocki
camera Ingo Krati
cut Harun Farocki

Ernste Spiele is a four-part film installation from 2009-2010. She deals with the use of virtual reality in modern warfare.

action

Serious Games I: Watson is gone (8 minute loop) - The first part shows an exercise simulation at the Twentynine Palms base, California. Four Marines sit at their laptops and steer a vehicle through the Afghan countryside. The landscape is based on geographical data and is a simulation of the real one, accurate down to the tree. After the instructor exposes insurgents and the gunner is shot by a sniper, it is clear that the death goes into much less detail than the landscape.

Serious Games II: Drei tot (8 minute loop) - The second part deals with a role play exercise that was also filmed in Twentynine Palms and in which around 300 extras were involved. A couple of dozen Marines patrol a replica of a Middle Eastern city in the California desert. Since the city is built out of containers, it looks more like a computer game.

Serious Games III: Immersion (20 minute loop) - The third and longest part was filmed in Fort Lewis, Washington and deals with the immersion therapy "Virtual Iraq" for post-traumatic patients. Here it should be possible for patients to replay and process their experiences. The program is demonstrated with a patient who goes into a virtual ambush while he is in dialogue with a therapist. The patient asks repeatedly to cancel the simulation until he finally collapses. In the end, it turns out that both the patient and the therapist are actually private entrepreneurs who want to sell the simulation to the army, a role-play in a role-playing game.

Serious games IV: A sun without shadows (8 minute loop) - The fourth part is a kind of conclusion of the series and compares the war-preparatory simulations with the post-war simulations. The film comes to the conclusion that the follow-up have no shadow due to the more modest budget.

backgrounds

The third part was shot in January 2009 in Fort Lewis , near Seattle, Washington, part 1 and 2 in the fall of 2009 in Twentynine Palms , California. The films were shown in various exhibitions, including at Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin from February 6th to July 13th, 2014.

Web links