Political Machinima
 
What a wonderful new (-ish) development! Yes, yes it was an obvious one but it takes guts and a special sensibility to decide to invest time on it and use a videogame in order to have your say on issues that could get you in trouble for many other reasons apart from copyright infringement. Machinima is so quick and cheap to develop that it becomes ideal for political protest. Again -not everyone’s cup of tea. However there’s something culturally relevant about creating a political video using games... it works so fantastically and dramatically well. Here are some examples of some amazing and brave pieces of work: - Jean Charles de Menezes http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=3434 - French Democracy http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=1407 (author Alex Chang in picture above) - Condemned Korea http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1825149858241346188&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=undefined - On the Campaign Trail http://machinima.com/films.php?id=619 Again the ILL Clan guys being ahead of times here... - Status Que http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=228. A lovely very early Machinima piece. - An unfair war http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=2634 There are many Machinimas that have touched on political issues in the past, directly or indirectly (like Fiezi’s The Journey or Red Vs Blue), but the pieces listed above respond to specific issues and were made within days/weeks of the original developments. Here’s another one I love although in a slightly different category: - Global Warminia http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=9718 Thoughts are that political Machinima constitutes a unique sub-genre within Machinima and one that reminds us of the ways in which it is so (potentially) socially relevant while at the same time reaffirms all the advantages associated with Machinima as a production tool. If you think about it, if there’s someone out there who wanted to create a protest video against something or someone, then the easiest, quickest, cheapest and possibly safest way of reaching millions of audiences would be to record Machinima in a bedroom and throw it to the web, wouldn’t it?http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=3434http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=1407http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1825149858241346188&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=undefinedhttp://machinima.com/films.php?id=619http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=228http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=2634http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=9718shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4shapeimage_1_link_5shapeimage_1_link_6
November 2006
With Alex Chang, author of
‘French Democracy’