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# Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s THE DELUSION Coming to Serpentine North
- URL: https://criticalplayground.org/danielle-brathwaite-shirleys-the-delusion-coming-to-serpentine-north/
- Published: 2025-08-10T04:09:25.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-10T04:16:35.000Z
- Description: A multiplayer game installation exploring polarisation, archives, and community repair through interactive play, opening in September
- Author: Staff Writer
- Tags: #featured, Featured, Emergent Practices, #emergentpractices

Opening 30 September 2025 at London’s Serpentine North Gallery,[THE DELUSION](https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/danielle-brathwaite-shirley-the-delusion/?ref=criticalplayground.org) is a major new video-game commission and immersive installation by British artist [Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley](https://www.daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com/?ref=criticalplayground.org). Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies, the project positions gaming as a live, collective experiment in dialogue and social repair. Running through 18 January 2026, the exhibition invites audiences into a participatory world designed to confront division, censorship, and the possibilities of reconnection. 

**A Multiplayer Installation on Division and Connection**  
Set in the aftermath of a fictional event known as the “Day of Division”, *THE DELUSION* immerses visitors in a world where communities have fractured into opposing factions. The installation functions as a multiplayer cooperative game, designed to test how groups navigate censorship, polarisation, and the challenge of reconnecting across divides. Rather than competing, participants shape the direction of the narrative through real-time interaction with purpose-built controllers. The gallery becomes both a game interface and a civic forum, inviting audiences to confront how dialogue and disagreement are negotiated in fragmented societies.

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**Custom Game Controllers and Open Source Technology**  
The work is powered by UPBGE, a community-built open-source engine derived from Blender. The result is a hybrid aesthetic that draws from early 1990s corridor games and glitch art, while integrating lo-fi digital textures that highlight the mechanics of play.

**Collaborators Driving the Project’s Design and Sound**  
Brathwaite-Shirley developed *THE DELUSION* with: Lydia Chan (Set Design), Loraine James (Music Composition), Ivaylo Getov and Vincent Moulinet (Custom Game Controllers). This collaborative approach reinforces the project’s commitment to communal authorship and co-designed experiences. A companion publication, co-published with [*Archive Books*](https://www.lespressesdureel.com/?ref=criticalplayground.org), will act as Brathwaite-Shirley’s first monograph. Conceived as a gamified interactive format, it includes contributions from Legacy Russell, McKenzie Wark, and others, edited by Tamar Clarke-Brown and Cairo Clarke, with design by Jamie Reid Studio.

**From Black Trans Archives to Participatory Worlds**  
Brathwaite-Shirley’s practice is rooted in creating interactive archives, including [*Black Trans Archive*](https://blacktransarchive.com/?ref=criticalplayground.org) and [*BlackTransSea*](https://www.daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com/copy-of-you-are-being-let-into-a-sp-3?ref=criticalplayground.org), which foreground identity, testimony, and cultural preservation. *THE DELUSION* extends this trajectory, transforming the gallery into a responsive archive where erased narratives reemerge through gameplay and collective negotiation.

**THE DELUSION as Interactive Infrastructure**  
*THE DELUSION* positions interactive art as a platform for civic dialogue, systemic inquiry, and communal authorship. It reconfigures the gallery as active infrastructure for public engagement, using play not as *a* distraction but as a tool for negotiating shared realities.

Exhibition Dates, Location, and Curatorial Team  
• Dates: 30 September 2025 – 18 January 2026  
• Location: Serpentine North Gallery, London  
• Admission: Free  
• Curators: Tamar Clarke-Brown with the Serpentine Arts Technologies team