Can you feel the spill? (2013)

Can you feel the spill? is a  board political game firmly tied to a specific Neringa issue that explores the /potential/ impact of the Kravtsovskoye /D-6/ oilfield on the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Curonian Spit. It is a detailed game system that stimulates  the decisions and processes inherent to the management body of the D-6 oilfield - the Oil Tsar (player 1) and the Environmentalist (player 2). The primary object of the game is to occupy every territory on the board and in so doing, eliminate the other player.The aim of the game is to clear the oil spill caused to the Kravtsovskoye oil platform built close to the area under the protection of UNESCO. Can you feel the spill? deals with the actual socioeconomic consequences arising from the accident on an oil rig and the environmental consequences of the construction of oil platforms near the area's rich biodiversity. The game formulates a clear position in relation to the political struggle, the impact of capital and the general structure of power relations established in capitalist social order and addressed by the extraction of black gold - oil. This is a mental, environmental, and sociopolitical board game; a micro-social practice and a piece of theory all rolled into one. It is conceived as a turn-based strategy game for two players,  that deals with a 'glocal' ecological issue of offshore oil drilling and its environmental impacts.By using  a playful/ironic language and a conceptual framework, most of the mechanics/strategies in the game are chosen to reflect the notions of subjectivity and the capitalistic power formations. The  game focuses the goals of the emancipation struggle against the capitalistic power: it doesn't take up a position of an absolute external opposition, but rather confronts it on the mental ecology of daily life - it invites you to play!

The game was created by the Les Miserables art collective.

Biography

Les Miserables is an informal artistic group/community and a movement from Serbia that is dedicated to creating/using /digital/ games for social change. Les Miserables are interested in exploring, working with and commenting on glocal socio-economical issues of the underprivileged/subaltern, geopolitics and ecology. Les Miserables are using micro-political and micro-social practices, new solidarities, while at the same time applying new aesthetic and analytically methodology to foster new/alternative subjectivities. Working with board games and/or digital navigation applications, Les Miserables are making subversive games that play with the player’s expectations. 

Gameplay and art design:
ISIDORA TODOROVIĆ

Game theory:
ANDREA PALAŠTI

Programming:
LUKA RANISALJEVIĆ