The Parallel Society

Xiaoji Song's game-based art project on financial exclusion and migration, where a rural worker and a migrant turn out to share the same structural barriers. A Future Money Project.

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Listen to the full podcast here: Parallel Society

Parallel Society is an interactive, game-based art project by Berlin-based artist, writer, and researcher Xiaoji Song that explores the emotional and systemic realities of financial exclusion, migration, and economic inequality. Funded by the Future Money Grant, this project uses speculative storytelling and gameplay to examine how access to financial systems is profoundly influenced by class, geography, and social bias.

Rooted in Xiaoji’s personal history, growing up in Wuhan, China, amid a vibrant punk subculture and influenced by intergenerational migration, Parallel Society draws from real-world events, such as the 2022 rural bank collapse in China and financial scams within immigrant communities. These incidents inform the game’s narrative, which follows two characters: a rural worker and a migrant. Often positioned as economic adversaries, these characters reveal shared experiences of structural marginalization.

The project challenges the traditional, stigmatizing use of the term “parallel society” by reframing it as a space of shared struggle and resilience. Through interactive gameplay, players confront systemic barriers that keep many people excluded from formal banking, credit systems, and financial tools, stemming from bureaucracy, distrust, or discrimination.

Parallel Society is created not only as an artwork but also as a narrative simulation, inviting participants to experience the frustrations, fears, and decision-making processes of individuals navigating life on the margins of financial systems. The project raises critical questions about the psychological impact of exclusion and emphasizes how alternative models of trust, community, and resource sharing can emerge in the absence of institutional access.

Scheduled for release in Spring 2025, Parallel Society represents a bold expansion of digital storytelling aimed at achieving financial equity. It positions games as a transformative medium that fosters empathy, sparks dialogue, and challenges prevailing narratives about who belongs in the future of money.