In this playroom, artists take to the stage to present and navigate their interactive works live in the Interactive Cinema. With plenty of free playtime and opportunities to meet the makers, this playroom (free walk-ins) offers new ways to experience documentary games and digital art together.

The afternoon kicks off with the live performance of Matt Romein’s new project MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery, in which a simple text-based game exposes how quickly human-computer interaction can spiral into coercion and absurdity. Followed by a walk-through of Maisha Wester’s Coded Black, an immersive first-person open world game where every object, voice, and fragment is drawn from real archives and research confronting the haunting transnational legacies of anti-Black racism. Together with Nathalie Lawhead, we explore a digital requiem for the internet, a playful yet piercing work tracing the shift from creative freedom to constrained exploitation. This serves as an anti-big tech manifesto that reminds us the internet is still ours to reclaim. Finally, Jan Rothuizen will recount his journey through Colombia, opening up his sketchbooks and reflecting on his personal observations of traveling through the country as a commissioned artist.

This playroom takes place in the Interactive Cinema, which is part of the DocLab Exhibition. Entry to the exhibition is on a pay-what-you-want basis.