Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
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Igor Simić, US/RS
Golf Club: Wasteland, 2018/2021, © Igor Simić. Photo © Manifesta 14 Prishtina / Ivan Erofeev.
Can Donald Trump and Elon Musk be inspiring? The two of them, in tandem? If you’re developing a post-apocalyptic video game, then the answer is yes. Delivering an ironic take on the genre, Golf Club: Wasteland offers to the gaming world a new scenario that even the least discerning newspaper reader would link to the golfer president and the space enthusiast.
In contrast to many of its counterparts, Igor Simić’s video game exchanges the classic mix of combat and problem-solving for a singular game of golf. A global catastrophe, so the story goes, has wiped out ninety-nine per cent of humanity.
Earth has become uninhabitable; the rich have fled to Mars. Wistful for the good old days on Earth, citizens of Mars listen and call in to the radio station Radio Nostalgia from Mars, while the ultra-rich head back down to Earth for a last round of golf.
You, the player, get to be one of these people. As you swing and putt your way through the ruins, from brutalist monuments to shopping malls, you can piece together – hole by hole – what went wrong.