Machinima No. 0

Overview

Online games and virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life are characterized by their own economy and have an in-world currency, which in some cases can be converted into ‘real’ money and thus generate income that can be used outside. World of Warcraft specifically relies on an economy of virtual gold which can be used to acquire, among others, weapons and equipment. This nascent economy has spawned specialized companies and workshops, especially in China where employees – so-called ‘Chinese gold farmers’ work day and night in order to produce currency, equipment and even whole characters to sell to other players in the United States and Europe. UBERMORGEN . COM explores and documents this phenomenon in the project ‘Chinese Gold’, which gathers texts, found footage and re-appropriated prints. The video ‘Machinima No. 0’ is lo-res found footage from video . google . com, showcasing a teleportation hack in World of Warcraft, repeated over and over by Chinese gold farmers.