CONTROL CLUB

Murphy Nile (Ziling Zhou)

Control Club is an immersive audio-visual theater piece generated and operated on a game engine, set within a circular matrix screen that constructs an alienated world governed by digital landscapes. In this realm where the virtual and real intertwine, you race down the information highway and labor mechanically in algorithmic factories. Control clashes with desire; under the glow of technology, life is endlessly reshaped and alienated—bodies and consciousness dissolve into data streams, quietly transforming into computational units of the machine, ultimately becoming casualties in an invisible war.

Here, the engine is more than a tool for rendering images—it becomes a metaphor for algorithmic control over perception and behavior in contemporary society. No longer a passive facilitator of observation, it operates as a managerial structure, absorbing users’ movements, feedback loops, and even awakened desires into a calculable, programmable logic. Murphy Nile employs “engagement” as a trap, constructing a sealed yet fluid immersive experience through rhythmic pacing, visual bombardment, and addictive gratification. Bodies, gaze, and attention are tightly locked onto predetermined paths, while the engine’s core functions—modeling and simulation—are repurposed to mirror the pervasive soft discipline of technocratic systems: dazzling but hollow spectacles, quantifiable goal structures, and meticulously timed reward systems. Within this airtight logic, everything is precise and orderly—yet what’s conspicuously missing is an exit toward autonomy.

Project Collaborators:

Credits Original artwork by Murphy Nile Programming & CGI Art by Murphy Nile Sound by Ewan Peng Support received from Computational Arts program at Goldsmiths, University of London, and UFO Terminal Loading…Project.