Barnabás Bácsi
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Lifer [exit mod] (2026)

with Jules Cartier

Lifer [exit mod] takes a meme / internet cultural phenomena, Bird Game 3 as its starting point. Although nonexistent and mostly materialized in the form of chaotic, AI-generated gameplay videos with live voice chat, Bird Game 3 is a catalyst for lore and world building. The work’s conceptual focus is an imagined, esoteric, lost mod to this game: the “exit” mod that lets the player break free of a cycle – but how it is activated remains obscured. The mod is made-visible only through it’s material, narrative and symbolic “memorabilia”. These employ an ambiguous tone that oscillates between the human and the bird realms, employing metaphors from each to understand the other.

The true nature of the lost mod unfolds through the three elements of the installation, each connected to one of the three dimensions above: a game console, a video and a floor drawing. The game console functions as a broken relic – a hollowed-out shell of a handheld, bird-shaped platform. Its disassembled screen is placed on a separate wall mount, looping a poetic, narrative interpretation of the exit mod, consisting of both gameplay videos, found footages and subtitled confessions and recollections. The floor drawing ties the other two media together, depicting the central symbol of the mod – an unusual take on a hopscotch that loops back into itself, but might also offer a way out.

exhibited at