Screen recording of the video game Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013), in which an androgynous avatar lies supine on a bed, facing away from the viewer. The game remains static as if the gamer were not in front of the screen, leaving the console on without pausing.

The 24-hour video follows the movement of sunlight and is streamed 24/7 for the entire duration of the duo show "States of Stagnation" with Giacomo Mercuriali, curated by Caterina Avateneo at Mare Karina Gallery in Venice.

Inspired by the genre of sleep streams, the video is displayed as a projection on a LED wall in the gallery’s window.

The work aims to prompt reflection on the concept of agency in the gaming world as a representation of real life and serves as a tribute to passivity and the creation of new landscapes of abandonment and withdrawal. Through this, the solitude of both the avatar and the game itself emerges when it is left unplayed (at least according to the game’s own internal rules).

The concept of action in contemporary video games is rooted in the neoliberal culture of Western society over the past 40 years. Gamers are positioned as protagonists of the story, as those who determine outcomes in a framework of self-empowerment. However, this illusion of freedom is only possible within the constraints of game design and programming—the limits and possibilities created by the developers.

The lack of free will can be frustrating for the gamer, leading to games being designed around reward systems and the possibility of redemption from failure. This structure makes them enjoyable yet still competitive.

GTA V is an open-world video game in which the goal is to complete missions to accumulate wealth and purchase increasingly expensive vehicles, homes, and businesses—a form of social climbing where the gamer acts as an entrepreneur of the self.

Remaining still and unproductive in a game centered on accumulation, wealth, and consumption is the only possible act of transgression within the game that does not reinforce the supremacy of its own rules. Video games are composed of a set of meta-games created by players, who replace programmed objectives with personal goals, modifying the game’s internal dynamics. A multitude of examples comes from alternative gaming practices such as speedrunning, where players complete a game as quickly as possible, disregarding the pleasure of the experience and instead maximizing gaming efficiency through timed runs.

In this sense, the artwork is the opposite of speedrunning: the meta-game here consists in refusing to complete the objectives set by the video game.

The work highlights the state of potentiality in which the game exists when we do not interact with it. The absence of interaction is itself a meta-game, existing outside the programmed rules of the developers.

The piece aims to evoke voluntary solitude, an abandonment that makes absence visible. It aligns with the exhibition’s overarching theme of passivity and the search for new forms of resistance. In this case, the focus is on rejecting the game’s rules and the urgency of expansion, celebrating exhaustion instead.