The Island

In Sam Keogh’s The Island, his avatar – a whimsical ‘bushranger’ styled as a tree-being – leads the viewer through the technicolour cartoon dreamscapes of the massive online video game Fortnite. In the game, 100 players are parachuted onto a deserted island where they must scramble for resources and fight to the death, a task made more urgent by ‘The Storm’. The last one alive is the winner. The whole island sits in the eye of this storm which incrementally contracts, forcing players into confrontations with each other. Keogh’s narration draws connections between the game’s mechanics and the environmental impacts of its increasing membership.