Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
For as long as there have been wars, there have been soldiers refusing to fight in them. The experimental short How to Disappear examines the history of military desertion via the online war video game Battlefield V (2018), drawing wry and provocative contrasts between digital and real-life combat. Created by the Austrian art collective Total Refusal, this thoughtful film also asks: what does it mean that you can’t desert within this computer-generated world? Unable to abandon the battlefield or surrender within Battlefield V, Total Refusal invents new and unusual forms of pacifistic disobedience for their user-controlled soldiers. Their imaginative tactics walk a thin line between trolling other players and challenging the frameworks and mores of this peculiar space. By putting aside the intended gameplay, the group explores muddy moral questions of play, patriotism and war in a society where lines between digital and real environments grow more blurred by the day. For more from Total Refusal’s Leonhard Müllner and Robin Klengel, watch Operation Jane Walk.
Directors: Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
video
Art
The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world
11 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
A scientist’s poor eyesight helped fuel a revolution in computer ‘vision’
9 minutes
video
Ageing and death
Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end
4 minutes
video
Future of technology
Is this the future of space travel? Take a luxury ‘cruise’ across the solar system
6 minutes
video
Metaphysics
Why mathematical truths exist with or without minds to consider them
8 minutes
video
Fairness and equality
A tragicomic account of how the Los Angeles Police Department blew up a city block
19 minutes
video
Stories and literature
A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life
6 minutes
video
Food and drink
Is a ‘gastronomic society’ dinner the height of decadence, or an act of artistry?
11 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
Struggling to learn how to do a backflip, Nikita takes on an unusual training regimen
12 minutes