Leonardo Magrelli, West of Here, 2021

Leonardo Magrelli, West of Here, 2021

 West of Here by Leonardo Magrelli

Essays by Brit Salvesen and Mirjam Kooiman
All the images in this work are taken in Grand Theft Auto V —a video game set in Los Santos, an “open world” scenario that closely resembles Los Angeles and its surroundings. Turned into a virtual replica, the city looks familiar and recognizable, but at the same time, pieces are missing, distances are altered, dimensions changed.

While exploring the possibilities and the meanings of photographing a virtual place, the work addresses further issues, such as the truthfulness of photography and our belief in this medium as a trace of reality. Cropped and turned to black and white by the author, all the images are originally taken by different players around the world. When it comes to showing how realistic this video game is, how much it “seems real”, it’s striking how all these users unknowingly adopt a visual language as descriptive and objective as possible, somehow close to the documentary style.

Thus, their pictures end up resembling those of many great photographers who worked in L.A. widely throughout the second half of the past century. With their own perspective, these artists all contributed to the creation of an image of the city that is still vivid and lasting.

source: http://www.yoffypress.com/west

more about Leonardo Magrelli: http://www.leonardomagrelli.com/

Rob Wetzer – Lost Worlds (2013 – ongoing)

Installation shots of Lost Worlds at Photo Festival Schiedam 2017, http://www.fotofestivalschiedam.nl/exhibition/lost-worlds/

Lost Worlds in Raw View #8, http://www.rawview.org/product/raw-view-8/

Lost Worlds is a visual exploration for what we perceive as nature, or natural.

The environments in which I make these images are the virtual landscapes of videogames. Where these landscapes used to be cardboard backdrops, they have become seemingly unlimited worlds. Designed to seduce the player to go explore pristine landscapes, they contain lush rainforests, icy mountain ranges, rushing waterfalls and barren deserts. Well-programmed weather systems provide rain, sunshine or snow and day and night cycles add to the ‘realness’ of the experience. To achieve a sublime-as-possible experience, the designs of these landscapes borrow heavily from Romantic interpretations of nature by painters as Caspar David Friedrich and Albert Bierstadt.

source: https://www.robwetzer.nl/lost-worlds/

more info: http://www.gamescenes.org/2017/02/game-art-robert-wetzers-lost-worlds-2013-ongoing.html