Total Refusal

The pseudo-Marxist media guerilla Total Refusal is a collective of artists, researchers, and filmmakers who upcycle the resources of mainstream video games to create political narratives in the form of videos, interventions, performances, and lectures. The collective's themes are informed by critical game studies and social theory in an attempt to promote and popularize a counter-hegemonic left. Their work has been screened at over 300 film and art festivals and exhibited at various spaces. Since their foundation in 2018, Total Refusal have been awarded more than 65 prizes and honorary mentions.

Susanna Flock (b. 1988, Graz) lives and works in Vienna as a visual/media artist. She graduated from the University of Art and Design Linz (2015) and from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2017), Austria. Flock works in the field of video and video installation and focuses on internet phenomena. Recently, she was awarded the Cité internationale des arts residency of BMKÖS (2024), Pixel, Bytes, and Film residency (2020), Viktor-Fogarassy-Price (2019), the Rote Fabrik residency Zurich (2019), a start-scholarship for media arts Austria (2018), and a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2018). She joined Total Refusal in 2020.

Robin Klengel (b. 1988, Graz) lives and works as an artist and cultural anthropologist in Vienna and Graz. He researches, writes texts, gives lectures and courses, and makes films in the field of artistic-scientific research of urban and digital spaces. He studied cultural anthropology in Graz and Berlin. Since 2021, he has been co-chairman of the interdisciplinary art and culture space Forum Stadtpark in Graz. He co-founded the collective in 2018.

Leonhard Müllner (b. 1987, Graz) lives and works in Vienna as a visual artist and media researcher. He studied Visual and Media Art in Linz, Leipzig, and Vienna and recently finished his PhD in Game Studies & Game Art. He co-founded the collective in 2018.

Michael Stumpf (b. 1985, Wels) studied Philosophy in Vienna and Media Culture and Art Theories in Linz (unfinished). His research interlaces a background in phenomenology with media and culture semiotics, analyzing the relevance and operating mode of popular cultural tropes. He works as an artist, designer, and coder. Stumpf co-founded the collective in 2018.