Hardly Working

Austria2022documentary21'Short Matters! Krótkie filmy roku (2024)

"Hardly Working" sheds a limelight on the very characters that normally remain in the background of video games: NPCs. They are non-player characters that populate the digital world as extras to create the appearance of normality. A laundress, a stable boy, a street sweeper and a carpenter are observed with ethnographic precision. They are Sisyphus machines, whose labour routines, activity patterns as well as bugs and malfunctions paint a vivid analogy for work under capitalism.

directed by: Susanna Flock
She lives and works in Vienna as a visual/media artist. She graduated from the University of Art and Design Linz (2015) and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2017), Austria. Flock works in the field of video and video installation and focuses on internet phenomena. Recently, she was awarded with the Pixel, Bytes and Film Residency (2020), Viktor-Fogarassy-Price (2019), the Rote Fabrik Residency Zurich (2019), start-scholarship for media arts Austria (2018) and with a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2018). Joined Total Refusal in 2020.
Robin Klengel
He lives and works as an artist and cultural anthropologist in Vienna and Graz. He researches, writes texts, gives lectures and courses and makes films in the field of artistic-scientific research of urban and digital spaces. He studied cultural anthropology in Graz and Berlin. Since 2021 he is co-chairman of the interdisciplinary art and culture space Forum Stadtpark in Graz. He co-founded the collective Total Refusal in 2018.
Leonhard Müllner
He lives and works in Vienna as a visual artist and media researcher. He studied Visual and Media Art in Linz, Leipzig and Vienna and is currently a PHD candidate in Media Studies with Helmut Lethen at MKKD Linz. He co-founded the collective Total Refusal in 2018.
Michael Stumpf
He studied Philosophy in Vienna as well as Media Culture and Art Theories in Linz (unfinished). His research interlaces a background in phenomenology with media and culture semiotics, analyzing the relevance and operating mode of popular cultural tropes. He works as an artist, designer and coder. Stumpf co-founded the collective in 2018.
cinematography: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
script: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
music: Adrian Jonas Haim
sound: Bernhard Zorzi
editing: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
production: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf, (Total Refusal)
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