Dates:
Sat, 12 Sept 2026, 15:00–16:00
Join 2girls1comp for a Meet the Artist session exploring how video game modding can be used as a subversive artistic practice. Together, the three works reveal how modding can become a form of critical intervention: by altering rules, animations and glitches within a commercial game, 2girls1comp exposes the ideologies embedded in its systems and opens up possibilities for imagining them differently.
Dancing Plague is an adaptation of the world-famous open-world computer game Grand Theft Auto V, which is set in a fictional city based on Los Angeles and centers on a group of gangsters. The game’s traditionally gendered choreography is subverted, forcing every male NPC to dance feverishly whenever the player holds the H key. This intervention spotlights the inherent gender biases within the game’s animation system, where dance moves are primarily designed for female performers, often objectified as sex workers.
F** the Policy is a mod that makes the police in GTA V read the player’s rights [Rockstar Games End User License Agreement] when they are being chased for their wanted level. The work juxtaposes the hyper-violent, criminal fantasy of GTA ’s world and its protagonists with the company‘s stringent regulations and the often disproportionate prosecution of its own community.
The Tyranny of the Hunt [1508475331] explores the myth of a grey-tan quadruped which has been rumoured to inhabit a video game at night time. While the existence of this digital cryptid remains unconfirmed, a rare glitch was discovered in 2017 which was believed to be the reason behind the majority of Swamp Monster sightings. The Swamp Monster represents a form of reality produced by software error, but also how my...
Categories: Screening
Source: Event information supplied by Source: Ars Electronica Festival 2026; formatted by LocFeed..