Planetarische Bauern

Playing, quite literally, the Austria-based artist collective Total Refusal (founded 2018 in Zagreb, Croatia) exposes the ideological structures lurking behind the hyperrealistic simulations of contemporary video games. For Planetary Peasants, in collaboration with Vienna-based artist Sarah Fichtinger (born 1990) and with support from computer game modder Nikola Supukovic (born 1991), they intervene directly in the digital fabric of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, an early 2025 release. Marketed as a particularly historically accurate game, it’s set within the peasant society of the late Middle Ages. Inspired by recent historical research, Minuswelt focuses on representations of women and utopian spaces in the early modern period. The privatization of the commons, the marginalization of women, and the relegation of their labour to the domestic sphere were all essential mechanisms underpinning the rise of early capitalism. How are the roles of women and their lived realities at that time portrayed in today’s mass medium of video games?