{"id":114601,"date":"2025-11-04T09:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/114601\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T09:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:13:12","slug":"in-danielle-brathwaite-shirleys-provocative-video-games-the-audience-is-the-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/114601\/","title":{"rendered":"In Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s Provocative Video Games, the Audience Is the Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley<\/a>\u2019s interactive video artwork I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT (2025), a series of fictional characters asks you to let them into the room. The handle is your game controller, attached to a full-scale, physical door that\u2019s embedded with a screen, waiting for you to open it. But the task is morally fraught: One pixelated, grotesque character, for instance, says they believe in bringing back segregation. Maybe you keep the door closed. But by doing so, are you enacting segregation yourself? <\/p>\n

This challenge is typical of the work of Brathwaite-Shirley, who combines a fearless approach to disturbing topics with distinctive lo-fi aesthetics to spark what she calls \u201cdifficult conversations.\u201d Meanwhile, the artist\u2014who is based between Berlin and London\u2014is generating quite a lot of chatter herself. She has experienced a colossal rise recently, culminating in her solo show \u201cThe Delusion<\/a>,\u201d which opened last month at London\u2019s Serpentine Galleries<\/a>. The exhibition, which includes video games like I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT along with videos, lightboxes, and drawings, follows significant commissions exhibited at Berghain in Berlin and London\u2019s Piccadilly Circus. The new show is a major stage for her inventive, uncompromising, and often harsh vision of our current reality. <\/p>\n

Brathwaite-Shirley wants to get audiences talking, she said. Many of her video game works prompt gallery visitors to confess things\u2014fears, anxieties, mistakes\u2014out loud. She asks a lot of viewers, pushing (some might say provoking) them to excavate shameful feelings. It\u2019s through these admissions that we get to the \u201cdifficult conversations\u201d that surround hot-button topics today: \u201cdehumanization, war crimes, God, censorship, fascism, gender, the changing political landscape,\u201d she listed, speaking about the new show\u2019s themes.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, it feels like there\u2019s no place to have a conversation to figure out what you think,\u201d the artist said in a walkthrough at the Serpentine. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to build a space that lets you have those hard conversations, even if what you\u2019re saying I may not agree with.\u201d This show, like many of her exhibitions, begins with a wallpaper text work, TERMS AND CONDITIONS (2025), that sets out the unusual expectations of her work. <\/p>\n

The instructions, printed in retro 8-bit font, tell visitors to \u201cspeak, listen, and respond.\u201d They end on a note of reassurance: \u201cYou are not being recorded.\u201d Here, it explains, is a place to discuss the implications of your beliefs with no repercussions. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, installation view of \u201cTHE DELUSION\u201d at Serpentine Galleries, 2025. \u00a9 Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Photo by Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy of Serpentine Galleries.<\/p>\n

Across Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s career, she\u2019s made a habit of asking taboo questions. The game Blacktranssea (2021), for instance, asks \u201cwho were your ancestors?\u201d Players must self-identify either as colonizers or \u201cthose that were carried across the sea.\u201d And in a 2024 performance\u2014part video art, part quasi-religious ritual\u2014at the Tate Modern, Brathwaite-Shirley asked the audience to identify their political beliefs to determine where the performance would go as she instructed and sang from the front of the group. It\u2019s all part of her intention to create experiences with her art: \u201cThe audience is my medium,\u201d the artist said in our interview.<\/p>\n

Much of Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s early career revolved around performance. When she graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2019, she had already presented solo performances at venues such as London\u2019s Raven Row and the Barbican. Some of these early shows featured the artist singing odes to Black trans life, accompanied by projections of her trademark digital animations.<\/p>\n

Yet she\u2019s always been hooked on games, a love that took root when, as a child, she picked up her dad\u2019s floppy disks. At first, she had no inkling that they were playable applications. She read their illustrated, story-filled manuals over and over again, until she wound up dreaming in their 8-bit graphics. <\/p>\n

Those low-res visuals influence the artist to this day. Across all of her work, Brathwaite-Shirley is drawn to a DIY aesthetic (she calls it \u201ccrispy\u201d). \u201cEverything looks like someone\u2019s hand has done it,\u201d she said. Case in point: She made all of the games at the Serpentine from scratch using an open-source software not intended for video games. And rather than working with professionals, she chose people she has personal connections to as voice actors. <\/p>\n

\"Danielle<\/p>\n

Friends in the Black trans community play a key role in Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s practice. \u201cI just feel like that community has got me through everything,\u201d she said. She honors them in works like Black Trans Archive (2020\u201323), a sprawling, interactive web-based collage that documents the eradication of Black trans voices throughout history. Rather than presenting dry biographies, the website takes visitors on an eccentric, somber journey through trans experiences, leading them to digital locales such as \u201cDead name burial site,\u201d \u201cTrans temple,\u201d or \u201cCis city.\u201d More recent work responds to the U.K. Supreme Court ruling<\/a> on the legal definition of gender: \u201cBasically, that trans women aren\u2019t women,\u201d as Brathwaite-Shirley put it. That work, commissioned by CIRCA and titled Trans and conditions (2025), consists of a website that asks visitors to create letters sharing their support for trans people.<\/p>\n

While much of Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s practice is informed by the tenor of contemporary social debate and her politicized experience as a Black trans woman, her practice also invokes a more intimate personal history. The exhibition space at Serpentine, for instance, is based on the layout of her grandmother\u2019s house and filled with domestic items like rugs and ornate chairs. <\/p>\n

On the walls, meanwhile, are horrifyingly reimagined family photos: WATCHERS (2025), a group of digital portraits based on people in her community who have influenced her. Collaging photographs with pixelated text, the works turn these meaningful personalities into monsters, a technique that recurs across her practice. <\/p>\n

This habit of \u201cmonster-fying everyone,\u201d she said, was a response to a horrific event she experienced: \u201csomeone telling me on the street that I should be shot for being trans,\u201d she said, matter-of-factly, seemingly unfazed by the violence she described. \u201cI was trying to see if I could find some power in this idea of being seen as a monster or a demon.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, installation view of \u201cTHE DELUSION\u201d at Serpentine Galleries, 2025. \u00a9 Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Photo by Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy of Serpentine Galleries.<\/p>\n

The artist takes a similar approach in ink drawings from the series \u201cREACTIONARY WORKS\u201d: intensely dark, personal responses to current events, where everyone is depicted as a monster. These rapacious, neckless beasts are annotated with shocking opinions, confrontational questions, and howls of sorrow. \u201cI pretend to care if it makes me look good,\u201d reads a speech bubble coming out of one six-eyed, grimacing mutant. These drawings evoke the depths of raw depression and anger at a hostile world, referencing porn, suicide, censorship, and war. \u201cIt\u2019s basically my diary,\u201d said Brathwaite-Shirley.<\/p>\n

But the audience is still the artist\u2019s primary medium\u2014so she\u2019s invited visitors to make diary entries of their own. Her favorite part of the show is an area that is labeled on the exhibition plan as \u201csafe room.\u201d Here, viewers can sit and flick through zines, critical texts, and other works that informed Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s practice. There are also empty sketchbooks which the audience is invited to fill with their immediate thoughts and drawings.<\/p>\n

\"Danielle\"Danielle<\/p>\n

Brathwaite-Shirley was shocked when a Serpentine staff member mentioned to us that they\u2019ve been filling up around a book a day since the show opened. A flick through a few pages revealed surreal scribbles on some and dark confessions about the state of the world on others. Just as Brathwaite-Shirley had been hoping, visitors were opening up\u2014and with their openness, perhaps, bringing a new attitude to the world outside. <\/p>\n

The Artsy Vanguard 2026<\/p>\n

The Artsy Vanguard is now in its eighth year of highlighting the most promising artists working today. As 2026 approaches, we\u2019re celebrating 10 talents poised to become future leaders of contemporary art and culture. <\/p>\n

Explore more of The Artsy Vanguard 2026<\/a> and browse works by the artists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

JT<\/p>\n

\"JTJ\"<\/p>\n

Josie Thaddeus-Johns<\/p>\n

Josie Thaddeus-Johns is Artsy’s senior editor focused on contemporary art, exhibitions, and artists. Before she joined Artsy in 2023, she was a freelance journalist covering art and culture for the New York Times, Financial Times, Frieze, Art in America, The Guardian, The Economist, and others.<\/p>\n

Originally from London, she has been based in Berlin for many years, with a short stint on the East Coast of the U.S. She studied classics at the University of Oxford and is the author of a book on German design. When she’s not writing about art, she’s on wheels: either cycling or rollerskating.<\/p>\n

Video by Pushpin Films \/ Timi Akindele-Ajani for Artsy.<\/p>\n

Thumbnail: Portrait of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Courtesy of the artist; Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, from left to right: \u201cJUST SWALLOW OUR TRUTH,\u201d 2025, and \u201cEVEN WHEN IM NOT LOOKING,\u201d 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Public Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s interactive video artwork I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT (2025), a series of fictional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[19359,437,434,435,436,73981,438,146,85,46,73984,73983,73982,30595],"class_list":{"0":"post-114601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-artist-profiles","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-danielle-brathwaite-shirley","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-il","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-josie-thaddeus-johns","19":"tag-public-gallery","20":"tag-serpentine-galleries","21":"tag-vanguard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}