A gang of wayward artists escape the confines of one of gaming’s biggest online worlds.
The Grannies (2019) follows a group of Melbourne-based artists (Goldie Bartlett, Andrew Brophy, Ian MacLarty and Kalonica Quigley, and friends) known as The Grannies as they break ‘out of bounds’ in Rockstar Games’ hit action-adventure videogame Red Dead Redemption 2, travelling beyond the authored limits of the game’s virtual world and into the increasingly broken and abstract space beyond. Rather than being driven by the desire to dominate or ‘win’, their adventures are driven by creative curiosity, presenting play as not just an end in itself, but as a form of artistic practice.
This multichannel video artwork, first presented at ACMI in the 2023 exhibition Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Videogames, has been adapted into a digital-first, interactive format by director Marie Foulston (V&A, Somerset House, Wild Rumpus) and creative technologist V Buckenham (Cheap Bots Done Quick!, Wild Rumpus, Now Play This).
The Grannies offers a rare glimpse into the cracks of the apparent seamlessness of the digital world, through an artist’s eyes.
For more information, visit ACMI
