Sydney installs not-at-all ominous Squid Game death statue to stare out at city's residents
The "Red Light, Green Light" statue allowed visitors to play a non-murdery phone game
Among the many horrors sloughed off Squid Game’s leviathan cultural presence—babies wearing the costumes of damned contestants, a truly absurd NFT scam, kids playing playground games on playgrounds again—the most innocuous but hilariously threatening of them all may be the temporary installation of the show’s little girl murder robot in Sydney, Australia.
The giant, laser-eyed doll from the first round of the show’s death tournament, “Red Light, Green Light,” was recreated for an interactive art piece that appeared at the city’s 4 Circular Quay West. PerthNow writes that the doll “weighs in at three tonnes,” stands 4.5 meters (just under 15 feet) tall, and “can turn its head, [chant] “red light, green light,” and has motion-detecting eyes to eliminate players who get caught.”
The statue showed up last week and is being removed today, but, while it was still around, allowed players to play a version of the game that didn’t end with them being shot to death and dying slowly in the bowels of a nightmare island fortress.
An Instagram post displaying the doll explains that players 16 and older could come to the site, “check in using [a] QR code and show your COVID-19 digital certificate” and then play the start-stop game while “[respecting] social distancing (1 person per 2 square metres) at all times.”