Agency, Games of Power

Agency. Games of Power is a video installation of a simulation which took place in April 2014 at Maxxi Museum in Rome. Inspired by a citizenship class exercise originally developed in the UK, 35 volunteer students from the Manara High School in Rome were involved in thinking through relationships of power in contemporary Italy. The students were divided into 5 categories: journalists, politicians, workers, activists and bankers. The journalists were responsible for an hourly report on the advancement of the ‘society’ while the objective of the game was to climb to power. The simulation was interrupted by planned moments of abstraction form the game; moments of debate both about the social conditions which were being created through the choices the different categories were making, and on the meaning and workings of power.