With this piece I began expanding the Pixelated Politicians series beyond the UK. By producing firstly a “DPRK edition” of the arcade title screen, I discovered that the meaning of the work deepens when it is internationalised. The interface remains the same –  grid, HUD, menu options, credit counter –  but the scenery, flag, and language localise the experience.

This repetition raises the question: does the performance of politics change at all for the citizen, or is it always the same game in different cultural dress? The voter or citizen inserts their coin, selects their leader, and the cycle begins again. The screen promises choice, but the system itself is unchanged.

The localisation process was revealing. Translating PRESS START into Hangul shifted the tone from a familiar Western gaming cliché into something more alien for me but still recognisable as “arcade logic.” The flag in the HUD corner also acts as a marker of how politics is “skinned” nationally, while the mechanics behind the interface remain identical.

On reflection, the expansion of the series to other countries makes the satire stronger. It exposes politics as a global franchise – one machine endlessly reskinned for each territory, but always demanding credits while offering little genuine agency.