by Zahid Fayyaz
As a part of the London Film Festival’s ‘Expanded’ part, Darkfield return to London’s Southbank for what’s their most subtle immersive present up to now, but nonetheless inside their acquainted delivery container efficiency area. In previous Darkfield works, you’d be mendacity down on a mattress or sitting in an airplane seat, while the manufacturing used encompass sound and sensory results to take you into the world of the efficiency piece. This is usually accomplished with noise cancelling headphones and complete darkness, which can also be the case right here for Arcade.
However, this time round, the viewers is standing in entrance of an 80’s fashion arcade recreation machine, and the narrative is managed by whether or not the viewers presses the ‘Yes’ button, or pays a coin-shaped token into the slot on the related time. For the 25-minute period, the viewers is plunged into an audio soundscape which represents a war-torn panorama, with the protagonist concerned in numerous insurgent factions and in possession of a fractious reminiscence. It’s onerous to elucidate precisely what you’ll expertise through the present with out it being an enormous spoiler. As an expertise nevertheless, its wonderful, with the viewers’s decisions making the narrative extra emotionally resonant than if it was completely down to simply listening to the expertise statically.
Darkfield have refined their beforehand profitable performances into what’s their most bold however rewarding experiences to this point. Wherever the container with the arcade consoles flip up subsequent, it’s actually one price going out of your manner for.
Arcade runs via 27 October.
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