“Night Running” by Zheng Fang.
“[A] video game about softness, hardness, opaqueness, transparency, sex, violence, love, hate, confusion, and misinterpretation.”
Misinterpretation is one of the themes “Night Running” deals with, and so it may very well be that my own feelings after playing through it do not coincide with the artist’s intention behind this work of art. Nevertheless, I cannot shake the feeling that we are dealing here with a kind of virtual museum, whose abstract exhibition rooms represent the most impressive facets of life itself.
We witness the feeling that hides somewhere between powerlessness and admiration when we are surrounded by titans, here represented by wandering metal giant hands. We see the spectrum of sexual desire, which ranges from pubescent permanent horniness to gentle intimacy. We surrender to art and let it permeate us. But at the same time the dark sides of our existence – violence, pain, death – are presented.
By the way, “Night Running” does not have an ending. Our starting point is unique, as our character wakes up in an open hand and can only slip through a curtain from there to get to the first room, but from there on we only move through a circular room structure. We can only close the program. Nevertheless, I would like to tell you that a visit to this particular display is definitely worthwhile. These ten minutes will be time well spent. [PLAY]
