Zero Sum (2015)
Zero Sum, 2015, Rod Dickinson
40mins Single channel video (live action and 3d animation) with 5 audio channels, 3D printed objects, table and chairs
Synopsis:
Zero Sum is an instructional video, and a role-playing installation consisting of a single channel video with five simultaneous audio channels streamed through headphones.
The audience are asked to role play a part in a simulated a classic social dilemma that models cooperation and non-cooperation. Seated around a table particpants are guided through the dilemma by an on screen facilitator or avatar.
Zero Sum, Installation, Halle14, Leipzig, Germany, September 2015
Zero Sum explores how software driven computational systems impact human behaviour and how computational and mathematical models have also been used to predict behaviour.
The artwork uses a mix of testimony from workers whose jobs are in automated environments such as call centres and a classic game theory dilemma: The Volunteer’s Dilemma (often referred to as The Free Rider Problem in economics).
The audience hear testimony from workers whose jobs are in environments such as call centres, distribution centres and supermarkets. Voiced by actors the testimony is based on a series of interviews that explore the automation of the workplace and its emotional impact on the workforce.
Alongside this testimony a 3D model animates the limited choices of The Volunteer’s Dilemma in a flow chart.
The audience experience this through a notional role play. An anti game in which the audience’s choices and decisions are scripted and made for them so that their experience echoes that of the workers testimony they are listening to.
Zero Sum, Installation, Halle14, September 2015