Opening 30 September 2025 at London’s Serpentine North Gallery,THE DELUSION is a major new video-game commission and immersive installation by British artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. 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.
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, 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 and BlackTransSea, 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
