PLAYTIME is set across three cities defined by their role in relation to capital: London, a city transformed by the deregulation of the banks; Reykjavik, where the 2008 global financial crisis began; and Dubai, one of the Middle East's burgeoning financial markets. Part documentary and part fiction, the work follows six main protagonists - the Artist, the Hedge Fund Manager, the Auctioneer, the House Worker, the Art Dealer, and the Reporter  - interconnecting figures in the world of art and finance with the real stories of individuals deeply affected by the crisis and the global flow of capital. 

Exhibited for the first time as a seven-screen work, PLAYTIME transforms the whole of Victoria Miro's upstairs gallery into a striking and immersive installation, montaging the work's protagonists and locations across multiple screens in reference to capital's potential to both facilitate global movement and to create its own barriers. 

The two-screen KAPITAL, installed in the lower gallery, creates an intellectual framework for PLAYTIME, centering around a conversation at the Hayward Gallery, London between Julien and renowned Marxist academic David Harvey (author of the book The Enigma of Capital).  Julien opens the film by asking why capital is so difficult to depict, to which Harvey deftly replies: "in the same way you can only really intuit gravity exists by its effects, you can really only intuit that capital exists by its effects." Staged as part of a seminar organised by the artist in 2012 entitled Choreographing Capital, the event saw notable interventions from theorists, critics and curators such as Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Irit Rogoff and Colin MacCabe. Julien has always made work in collaboration, conversation and exchange but this is the first time he has opened up the complex and rigorous research processes that lie behind his working methods. 

An exhibition of large-scale photographic works from the PLAYTIME series is on view at Victoria Miro Mayfair until 1 March 2014.

For more information on the RIOT publication, Julien's exhibition of Ten Thousand Waves at MoMA New York and his talk at Tate Modern in 2014 go here.