Background, Action! is a video made in the out-of-bounds spaces of Cyberpunk 2077. Borrowing the command language of a film set, the work redirects “action” away from event and toward maintenance. The figures it follows are not NPCs but algorithmic crowd fillers, generated to sustain the appearance of a populated world until more detailed bodies are required. The work foregrounds this normally unseen layer of world-making, treating background motion itself as the subject.
Digital video (machinima) 4:30 min.
Made with Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red)
Sound: Perclane
A related essay extends this research in writing. It brings together my artistic out-of-bounds game practice and experience working as a film extra across multiple productions to trace the industrial and theoretical relation between film extras, simulated crowds, and background labour.
[link to read]
2026