MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery

Besides the performances, there is a special live presentation of MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery during DocLab Playroom: Connected Offline.

The player’s task in this computer game sounds simple enough: deliver milk to various locations in the village. But nothing is as it seems in MILKMAN ZERO, which is played using text prompts. Customers make suggestive proposals, mugs of milk mysteriously never run dry, and the payment system appears to have been hacked by extraterrestrial beings. The computer game spurs the player on, subtly coercing them into subversive actions—and then playing dumb when critical questions are asked.

In a 30-minute stage performance in which he plays MILKMAN ZERO live on stage, Matt Romein shows how quickly and radically the interaction between human and computer can derail. Systemic violence gets normalized in the name of efficiency, and the player becomes a slave to their own tool. As he has shown in his past work, Romein nurtures a fascination with devices that enhance human potential—or dehumanize us as we increasingly bend to technology.

MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery is presented in collaboration with Onassis ONX.