Image description: THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

Artist–game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley has built a formidable practice of “living archives” that centre Black Trans life – spanning game worlds, performance and installation with major presentations across London, Berlin, Barcelona, Geneva and beyond. Now Danielle returns to London with THE DELUSION at Serpentine North: a multiplayer, gallery-scale experience that places the audience at the heart of the work. Combining satire and absurd humour with cooperative gaming and participatory theatre, THE DELUSION asks how we face polarisation, censorship and the messy work of connection – together. Conceived in collaboration with Danielle’s Black Trans and Queer community, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a “human engine” for open, accountable conversation, archiving voices and encounters as they happen. In this Run Riot intereview, Danielle opens up about methods, community, and why art must be a space for courageous dialogue.

In your own words, what is THE DELUSION, and why that title for a work about polarisation, censorship and social connection?

THE DELUSION is a human engine focused on allowing you to let down some of the guards you normally hold, so you can open up to someone you don’t know – and maybe never would have spoken to otherwise.

It’s called THE DELUSION because, on the one hand, we live in a deluded society. And on the other, delusion is often necessary. We need it to hold on to hope or belief in things that don’t yet exist. Delusion is usually spoken of negatively, but if you dream of something that doesn’t exist yet, you may need to hold onto that delusion for a long time in order to make it real and convince others too. The piece is about coming in with a delusion and seeing if it can meet with someone else’s.

Image description: THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, photography: Talie Rose Eigeland.

You describe the piece as a “human engine.” How does the game pull people out of the screen and back into real-time conversation?

The game uses the screen as a sort of controller to get you to do group activities. At first, it’s simple e.g. pushing a table down together. Then it moves on to speaking words aloud, placing your hands on your stomach, humming, introducing your name. Gradually the instructions become less about the game and more about what you’re doing alongside others in the space. Eventually it just tells you to have a conversation.

Visitors begin with a set of Terms & Conditions. What commitments are audiences making, and how do these shape consent, safety and accountability in the room?

The Terms & Conditions provide a set of rules to guide audiences. Whenever you have audience interaction, you need boundaries: don’t touch anyone, ask people their name, introduce yourself gently. The Terms & Conditions provide simple rules so people know how to interact without crossing lines. Even if you’re unsure what to do, those rules give you the tools to move forward respectfully.

Image description: THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, photography: Talie Rose Eigeland.

THE DELUSION mixes cooperative gaming with participatory theatre. What kinds of prompts or exercises will strangers navigate together, and what might “success” look like?

For me, success isn’t in the game itself but in doing something with a group. The games are just the method. Prompts include humming together, moving together, raising your hands and thinking of people, even holding your breath. They can be playful or challenging.

It’s not about missions or completion – it’s about whether you engage enough to get something out of it. If you don’t, that’s fine. If you do, maybe it shifts something for you.

Why build on UPBGE and combine it with ‘obsolete’ techniques like 2D/3D sprites? What did that hybrid stack let you do that other engines or pipelines couldn’t?

UPBGE is unfinished, but it’s built and kept alive by its community – it was abandoned and resurrected by users. That resonates with how I work: engaging with communities, sharing, open-source exchange.

We’re giving all our code back to the community. The engine’s restrictions force you to work differently, producing a collage-like aesthetic that I really enjoy.

Image description: THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, photography: Talie Rose Eigeland.

You’ve modded classic arcade/co-op games (you name-check Monkey Ball) and built bespoke controllers with Ivaylo Getov and Vincent Moulinet. How do those tactile interfaces change who gets agency inside the work?

The controllers are built to look like household objects: a table, a door, lamps. This enables playing to feel natural as you’re using something familiar to do something unfamiliar. It avoids the disconnect of entering an immersive space only to be handed a generic game controller. The controllers are large, often needing more than one person. That difficulty encourages you to ask for help and interact with others. Communication becomes necessary to even play.

Sound by Loraine James grounds three emotional moods. What are those moods, and how does sound design calibrate the social temperature of each playthrough?

The three moods are hate, hope, and fear. When I collaborate, I ask the artist to interpret the theme in their own way without showing them much. Loraine returned with sound based off the themes that we then adapted the work around.

The result is more tonal noise than music — ten-minute stretches that shift from unpleasant to pleasant. The sound aims to provoke physical and emotional reactions, not just background atmosphere.

The world draws on your personal history, religious/spiritual symbols, propaganda, and horror references (Paratopic, The Backrooms), with a set by Lydia Chan, stained glass telling the ‘Day of Division’, and sculptural effigies. What meanings should visitors sit with – not just look at?

I’m not trying to prescribe a right or wrong way to interpret things. Some references will feel uncomfortable, others affirming, and those reactions will differ from person to person. My role is to stir references, provide the space, and make sure it feels safe to have conversations around them. What visitors take away is up to them.

Image description: THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, photography: Hugo Glendinning.

THE DELUSION actively archives headlines, social posts, conversations with spiritual leaders/activists, community testimonies and your own notes. What gets included, what stays private, and how does this anti-censorship archive evolve during the run?

Once something is added to the game, it can’t be taken out. Even if it looks bad, it stays – it’s like adding paint to a canvas. You can move it around, but you can’t erase it. That prevents erasure, though it doesn’t remove the risk of distortion. It also means including difficult phrases and extreme opinions, even if they’re not my own. We soften the blow with satire and humour so visitors can engage without being traumatised. Sometimes you meet a brutal message in a playful form.

A writer’s room (led by Travis Alabanza with Tatenda Shamiso, Shaznay Martin and Brooke Maggs) shaped the narrative branching, and a major gamified publication with Archive Books extends it beyond the gallery. What surprised you most in that collaborative writing – and what change do you hope audiences and institutions carry out after leaving Serpentine?

I’d never worked with a writing team before so it was interesting going through the editing and re-editing process and having my work torn apart! I gained more understanding about the tone I use when writing and how I tend to hammer the message from beginning to end, while the writers would often work towards the message. Together we found ways to make both happen and craft narratives that are both playful and strong. We also had developers present during this process which lead us to consider how the environment also tells the story.

I want institutions to become more functional, so my job in the work I create is to make space for conversations to happen, building something akin to a community centre or home. Whether institutions take that on is another question and it’s not every artists’ dream for institutions to transform in this way. But I believe we need more physical spaces that engage in difficult conversations and we’re missing a lot of the community spaces that we used to go.

Find Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley at daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: THE DELUSION
Serpentine North
Running until Sunday 18 January 2026. Free. Booking required.
serpentinegalleries.org