DIRECTOR/AUTHOR Collective work of Total Refusal
PRODUCTOR Total Refusal
PRODUCTION Total Refusal
EDITING Robin Klengel
SOUND Adrian Haim, Bernhard Zorzi
TOTAL REFUSAL SIND ZURZEIT Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf
Hardly Working is an homage to non-player characters that populate the digital world as extras to create the appearance of normality. A vivid analogy for work under capitalism.
“Hardly Working” exposes hidden political undercurrents within the world of gaming. Through an in-depth exploration of marginalized NPCs—washerwomen, stable boys, street sweepers, carpenters—their existence as mere cogs in the capitalist machinery becomes clear. With careful attention to ethnography, this film unveils the grim reality of labor routines, highlighting the degree of exploitation and dehumanization inherent in our capitalist society, with glitches and malfunctions serving as a striking allegory for the systemic flaws and struggles faced by workers under the oppressive forces of capitalism.
Total Refusal—a self-styled “pseudo-Marxist media guerilla”—explores and practices strategies for artistic intervention in contemporary computer games. They work with tools of appropriation and the redeployment of game resources. Their films and performances have been featured at the 2020 Berlinale, MoMA in New York, and elsewhere.
