Brent Watanabe's Animal Crossing: All Mine streams as VRAL machinima
Brent Watanabe's short film, Animal Crossing: All Mine, is available for streaming as part of the VRAL online supplement to the Milan Machinima Festival until October 1, 2020. This film offers a critique of consumerism in the context of Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch, where players create lives on isolated islands. Watanabe's avatar turns his island into a landfill, amassing items such as toxic barrels and dinosaur skeletons, thereby pushing the game's collecting aspect to extremes. The piece examines the glorification of consumerism and Watanabe's personal connection to consumption. Additionally, it showcases the intricacies of machinima by employing software in unexpected ways and questioning our engagement with genuine processes. An interview with Watanabe conducted by Matteo Bittanti is also accessible.
Key facts
- Animal Crossing: All Mine is a short film by American artist Brent Watanabe.
- The film is streamed as part of VRAL, online supplement to the Milan Machinima Festival.
- It is filmed inside the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch.
- The film critiques consumerism by turning the game's island into a dump of accumulated objects.
- Watanabe's avatar shows an island filled with toxic barrels, golden toilets, dinosaur skeletons, and more.
- The work investigates the glorification of consumerism in the game and the artist's own consumption.
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been described as reproducing capitalist and colonialist practices.
- The film is available for free streaming until October 1, 2020.
- An interview with Watanabe by Matteo Bittanti is also available.
- Matteo Bittanti is curator of VRAL and artistic director of the Milan Machinima Festival.
Entities
Artists
- Brent Watanabe
- Matteo Bittanti
Institutions
- Milan Machinima Festival
- VRAL
- Nintendo
- Università IULM
Locations
- Milan
- Italy