Grayson Earle: why don’t the cops fight each other?

In the spring of 2020, after the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing BLM protests, artist Grayson Earle tried to vent his frustration about the situation using the computer game Grand Theft Auto V. By modifying the game code (so-called modding), he tried to get two police officers to beat each other up with baseball bats. Without success, however: while the police can use force on civilians without any problems in GTA V, the officers run away from each other, despite the clear request to fight each other.

Earle takes this impossibility of changing behavior as the starting point for his desktop film why don't the cops fight each other?. Together with the modding community on the net, he searches for the reasons and possible solutions and in this process encounters deep-seated and unseen structures of state power that can be found in the game as well as in reality.

Selected by Cornelius Ferber (HMKV)

 

Grayson Earle is a contemporary artist and activist from the United States. His work deals with the role that digital technologies and networks can play in protest and political agency. He is known for his guerrilla video projections as a member of The Illuminator Art Collective and Bail Bloc, a computer program that posts bail for low-income people. In 2020, he hacked the Hans Haacke career retrospective exhibition at the New Museum to criticize the Museum's efforts to union bust its employees. His artworks have been exhibited internationally. He is currently residing in Berlin, Germany, as a participant in the current "Berlin program for artists".

 

Find out more about the artist:

website: https://graysonearle.com

instagram:@prismspecs

 

Further reading to why don't the cops fight each other?:

VICE-Article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/epn9ka/why-wont-the-cops-fight-each-other-in-grand-theft-auto-5

Immerse Magazine: https://immerse.news/screen-tactics-ec0846d44996