Milan Koerner-Safrata


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   milan@scrnprnt.ca
@     milanimalism
   werkstatte
   Infinite State Machine


  • b. 1993, Vancouver, Canada
  • Multimedia artist and designer
    of playful cybernetics




Age Of

2021, Interactive installation

Virtual worlds, multiplayer, chatroom
    An online chatroom for the animals of Age of Empires II. Metamorphose between species of the animal kingdom in playful contempt of the human civilizations set against a pastiche of Bosch’s biblical triptych.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is a videogame designed for both installation and web, an online multiplayer chatroom that inverts the dynamic of the civilization building videogame Age of Empires II (1999) allowing human participants to assume animal avatars. Using the original game sprites rearranged into Bosch’s eponymous painting, players frolic amongst each other in a simulated detournement of the civilization building genre. 

The work situates itself as a soft critique of the failure of interactive worlds to imagine alternatives to the prevailing orders of anthropogenic suicide, as there exists an increasing demand for virtual worlds that evoke a pastoral fantasy of pre-industrial society. In the face of our crisis—Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, etc. are popular products. This project was built as a response to our own enjoyment playing games that structure gameplay around virtual accumulation and conquest—specifically our memories playing Age of Empires II. The invocation of the eponymous painting allows for playful reflection of these memories but leaves ambiguous the role of building virtual worlds at the end of the world, are these videogames outlets of climate angst or perpetuating poor natural imaginaries. 


(c) Next Level Festival / Photo: Robin Junicke