Hardly Working
A film focusing on characters that normally remain in the background of video games: NPCs, or non-player characters – extras to create the appearance of normality. They are Sisyphus machines, whose labour routines, activity patterns as well as bugs and malfunctions paint a vivid analogy for work under capitalism.
Winner of the European Short Film Award 2023
- Country: Østerrike / Austria
- Year: 2022
- Length: 21
- Director: Total Refusal: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner and Michael Stumpf
- Script: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
- Photography: Michael Stumpf, Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner
- Editing: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
- Sound: Bernhard Zorzi
- Music: Adrian Haim
- Producer: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
Total Refusal: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner and Michael Stumpf
The pseudo-marxist media guerilla Total Refusal explores and practices strategies for artistic intervention in contemporary computer games, working with tools of appropriation and rededication of game resources. Their works have been shown at Berlinale 2020 and MoMA NYC, and their film How To Disappear won best Austrian short documentary at Diagonale 2020.
Total Refusal consists of different and changing members, currently including Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner and Michael Stumpf.