Enduring Indymedia by La Mollindustria
Many contemporary socially engaged works of art that exist within the digital realm use video gaming as a means of expression. By definition, video games start with the ultimate goal of defeating the player/s and terminating the game. The familiar "GAME OVER" message is, in essence, a self-imposed death notice. Ephemeral in nature, a video game cannot be contained but may be experienced. Fulfilling its mission as a tool of propaganda, a well-designed game may entice a player to play the game multiple times, exposing the user to a message the game designer may choose to communicate. La Mollindustria – Political Video Games Against the Dictatorship of Entertainment, is an Italian-based group of artists, designers and programmers that seeks to promote a discussion of social and political issues through the use of video games. Fully aware of the captivating power of games, La Mollindustria notes in its mission statement,
“We can free videogames from the 'dictatorship of entertainment,' using them instead to describe pressing social needs, and to express our feelings or ideas just as we do in other forms of art.”
One such issue La Mollindustria chose to highlight through the use of a video game is the latest incidents involving the confiscation of indymedia.org servers by U.S. authorities. Entitled “Enduring Indymedia” (playing off the name of the U.S. military's attack on Afghanistan known as "Operation Enduring Freedom"), the game allows the player to assume the ominous role of the authorities. A player may choose to be U.S. President George W. Bush, a member of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government or simply a Swiss policeman. Having the chosen official hover over the world in a flying saucer, the goal of the player (the authorities) is to eliminate critical thinking worldwide by beaming Indymedia servers off the face of the earth. By setting the speed of the emergence of new Indymedia servers to exceed the speed by which they may be eliminated by the authorities, the game does not allow the user (the authorities) to "suffocate freedom of speech worldwide."