VIGILANCE 1.0

Vigilance 1.0
video surveillance game, cdrom, 2001

The player faces a series of screens allowing him to watch over many places in the same time : streets, supermarkets, parking lots, shops, apartment buildings, schools, etc. Denouncement is his aim. In a limited time (his work time), he has to point out the most important amount of infractions : robberies, pocket-pickings, burglaries, shop-lifts, breaches of the highway code, trash-abandoning, drug dealing, solicitation on a public place, procuring, drunkenness, sexual harassment, adultery, incest, pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia, etc. Each time the player catch one in the act, his points increase ; each time he defames, they lower. Each citizen being a virtual offender, all unpunished infractions increase the rate of amorality of the society. A mere vigilance would lead to a moral purification, and back to the spirit of effort, family, solidarity. An inadequate vigilance would necessarily plunge the population into chaos and depravity.

Prevented from using his critical sense by the lure of success, the player faces a double bind : while he still plays the part of the unrelenting lover of justice, he becomes conscious that to play the game is in a way to play against the discourse of the game. At the end, the denunciation of a controlled society, the total visibility and spying, puts him in a position of self-denunciation.

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