“The limbed and headed machine of pain and undignified suffering is firing up again. It wants to walk the desert. Hurting. Longing. Dancing to disco music.” — The Ancient Reptilian Brain

We all go through these transformative experiences in our lives, times when the desert we walk gives way to an oasis or maybe times where it feels as though we’re standing on the edge of a great abyss. There are times when life feels unbearable heavy like a large steel ball or weight in your hand. We hurt and desire. Desiring machines. Machines that feel and long and that crave for the end state of interconnection with other machines that desire for the consumption and production of that which gives us our lives. Our media is just one of these productions.

I love video games. I adore video games. I’ve had almost spiritualistic experiences finding myself in the worlds crafted by my fellow desiring machines. These worlds are just as well a part of this interconnected production flowing out from the desires of the developer. For the longest period of my life, Fallout: New Vegas was the one world that I desired to step into through the window of my flashing and changing monitors: A surreal, dark, gory mirror of the sphere in which I lived, a world where our desires ran wild and became destruction, where we hungered for the end of civilization and a grim critique of the awful structures and bodies we find ourselves trapped in.

I come to you now, however, with Disco Elysium, yet another machine crafted reality that I cannot seem to escape thoughts of. This one, yes, this one has overtaken my former desire and replaced it with new longing. The reality of Elysium is delirium, a random assortment of thoughts that transcend the boundaries of our society and structures and do not fit neatly into any of our spheres. Where New Vegas was a condemnation of our American society, Disco Elysium goes beyond. Elysium challenges even our most idealistic conceptions of society. Liberal republicanism? Inefficient and callous. Fascist racial hierarchy? Built upon stupidity, cruelty, and the severing of the connections we need with other desiring machines. Socialist utopia? Unable to break free of its prior structures and barbarity. Look beyond the spheres and isolas! Look beyond Elysium and our own society outside of this fashioned reality.

Disco Elysium challenges the player to look beyond our concept of reality and to, thus, challenge the capitalist realism we find ourselves in, but also in the context of the Soviet Union, seen by the developer as a continuation of the same structures that the Marxist should really be moving beyond. Disco Elysium is a form of analysis that we often don’t get exposed to: a schizoanalysis. The word doesn’t even exist. As I type this out now, spellcheck doesn’t even know what to make of it. Truly, it is something new and fascinating to our conceptions of how we view differing parts of the machine we find ourselves in. I cannot recommend engaging with this analysis enough regardless of your political leanings, but I especially recommend engaging with this piece if you are what we usually consider to be a leftist.

“The limbed and headed machine of pain and undignified suffering is firing up again. It wants to walk the desert. Hurting. Longing. Dancing to disco music.” — The Ancient Reptilian Brain We all go through these transformative experiences in our lives, times when the desert we walk gives way to an oasis or maybe times where it feels as though we’re standing on the edge of a great abyss. There are times when life feels unbearable heavy like a large steel ball or weight in your hand. We hurt and desire. Desiring machines. Machines that feel and long and that crave for the end state of interconnection with other machines that desire for the consumption and production of that which gives us our lives. Our media is just one of these productions. I love video games. I adore video games. I’ve had almost spiritualistic experiences finding myself in the worlds crafted by my fellow desiring machines. These worlds are just as well a part of this interconnected production flowing out from the desires of the developer. For the longest period of my life, Fallout: New Vegas was the one world that I desired to step into through the window of my flashing and changing monitors: A surreal, dark, gory mirror of the sphere in which I lived, a world where our desires ran wild and became destruction, where we hungered for the end of civilization and a grim critique of the awful structures and bodies we find ourselves trapped in. I come to you now, however, with Disco Elysium, yet another machine crafted reality that I cannot seem to escape thoughts of. This one, yes, this one has overtaken my former desire and replaced it with new longing. The reality of Elysium is delirium, a random assortment of thoughts that transcend the boundaries of our society and structures and do not fit neatly into any of our spheres. Where New Vegas was a condemnation of our American society, Disco Elysium goes beyond. Elysium challenges even our most idealistic conceptions of society. Liberal republicanism? Inefficient and callous. Fascist racial hierarchy? Built upon stupidity, cruelty, and the severing of the connections we need with other desiring machines. Socialist utopia? Unable to break free of its prior structures and barbarity. Look beyond the spheres and isolas! Look beyond Elysium and our own society outside of this fashioned reality. Disco Elysium challenges the player to look beyond our concept of reality and to, thus, challenge the capitalist realism we find ourselves in, but also in the context of the Soviet Union, seen by the developer as a continuation of the same structures that the Marxist should really be moving beyond. Disco Elysium is a form of analysis that we often don’t get exposed to: a schizoanalysis. The word doesn’t even exist. As I type this out now, spellcheck doesn’t even know what to make of it. Truly, it is something new and fascinating to our conceptions of how we view differing parts of the machine we find ourselves in. I cannot recommend engaging with this analysis enough regardless of your political leanings, but I especially recommend engaging with this piece if you are what we usually consider to be a leftist.