| Sumario: | The idea of the serious game as a metaphor and as an actuality comes up in constantly in border surveillance. This article looks at two contrasting examples of interactive performances that we are asked (asked?) to take seriously (?): the US border-related reenactment pieces Pulpo and Oracle by Mexico City-based artist Yoshua Okón, and the “Caminata nocturna” created by the indigenous collaborators in the EcoAlberto tourism park. These case studies provide useful instances in which we can think about how technology and transculturation intervene in border spaces, and how those spaces are mediated by an uneasy flip between seriousness and vacilón, where gravity and levity are somewhat incongruously and overtly intertwined.
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