School of Perpetual Training

"Stephanie Rothenberg is an interdisciplinary artist who engages participatory performance, installation and networked media to create provocative public interactions.

'School of Perpetual Training', an ironic edutainment website, exposes the underbelly and not so glamorous side of the computer video game industry. An animated personal trainer leads eager job seekers through a series of webcam-enabled training exercises for outsourced jobs in digital game manufacturing and global distribution. Classic arcade games such as Dig Dug and Space Invaders are redesigned to train job seekers for positions in mineral mining and printed circuit board assembly. Pushing joystick and mouse aside, the webcam interface utilizes motion detection requiring full range of body motion to play. Through the relationship of physical labor for virtual gain, the reality of the actual physical, labor critical to running virtual worlds is made visible." -- From Turbulence