*Control: The Uptime Protocol*
Machinima
Control：The Uptime Protocol is a real-time CGI short film made as an Unreal Engine machinima, structured like a trilogy of connected levels. The engine is treated as an occupied habitat rather than a neutral tool. Prompts, cursors, HUDs, and reward loops are not decoration, but platform-like infrastructure that quietly scripts how we move, watch, and consent.
Control: The Uptime Protocol is a machinima that extends the immersive project Control Club, unfolding within the same virtual-digital universe. Control Club interrogates contemporary modes of control—shaped by screens, interface culture, and economies of attention—and was presented in 2025 at UFO Terminal.
Control Club at ”Loading...Access 3“ Exhibition in UFO Terminal Shanghai
​​Curator： Sen Send
Set in a future built around uptime, “continue” has slipped from an option into a reflex. Chapter one opens on velocity and constant throughput, driving, streaming, swiping, with attention accelerated beyond refusal. Chapter two drops into competitive loops and financialized feedback. Small wins calibrate desire, while losses are delayed, softened, and returned as something replayable. Chapter three enters the system itself, where control no longer looks like an external rule. Prediction replaces prohibition, frictionless access replaces boundaries, and the body becomes an addressable endpoint.
Shot with the cool tone of a machine documentary, the film follows one repeated gesture: pressing Continue. It is the smallest action and an endlessly renewed form of consent. The work asks what freedom means inside always-on systems, where the interface does not force, but quietly keeps you moving.
