Tag: grand theft auto v

GHOST CITY
News

Artist turns Grand Theft Auto V into a ghost city

Three years on and people are still finding new ways to look at Grand Theft Auto V (2013). This time its French digital artist Hugo Arcier who has reinterpreted the game’s world without a population. He calls it GHOST CITY—a video installation that was first shown at his exhibition “Fantômes numériques” at Lux Scène Nationale from April 29th to July 9th earlier this year. “The focus is put on architectural and graphic elements. It is a meditative and captivating experience,” writes Arcier about GHOST CITY. “This virtual universe solicits both the present (the experience of the artwork) and the memory.”…
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Los Santos Pride mod gives GTA a much-needed queering

Notice: Discussion of homo/trans/biphobia /// “Almost fooled me, bro-she!” says Grand Theft Auto V (2013) protagonist Franklin while passing by a group of trans women. “He’s so deep in the closet, his friends call him mothballs!” yells the game’s parody of Simon Cowell at a contestant on his singing competition. “Post Op: No Longer Just Mail” says the side of one of the game’s UPS stand-in brown delivery trucks as it drives by. Grand Theft Auto V has about one of the most open worlds in gaming, but in jokes like these, much of that world is made inaccessible for all…
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Photo series shows how GTA V’s bleakness mirrors everyday life

As technology advances and our lives grow more and more digital, the barrier between our physical world and the virtual one grows increasingly blurred. As videogame graphics venture further into the dark lands of the uncanny valley, it seems only consequential that a photographer would eventually utilize in-game screenshots to juxtapose them against our physical world. Pairing our world with one of the most illustrious and life-like of open world games That’s what photographer Ollie Ma’ of Buckinghamshire, England has done, having captured the thematic emotions of disconnect in his photography. In his latest project, “Open World,” Ma’ couples in-game…
Feature

The inglorious nihilism of Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V (2013) is a confidence trick; Rockstar is a fraud. They tell people to distrust capitalism and suspect politics—the entire world, and all its peoples, are venal. In the same breath, they promise sanctuary. “Are you young? Are you angry? Are you an iconoclast, too? Then Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto are here for you,” they seem to say. But it’s a con. Rockstar embraces cynics and outsiders, but only so it may reach a hand into their pockets. Generally, Grand Theft Auto is nihilistic, in a manner betokening not worldliness but arrogance. The chief villain of…
San Andreas Deer Cam
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What the 24-hour deer cam in GTA V tells us about the game

There is a wild deer wandering the paved streets of San Andreas, the fictional city of Grand Theft Auto V (2013), freely roaming the 100 square miles of gangland and beaches. By “wild” I don’t mean that this creature is merely not of civilized society—a wild beast—I mean that it doesn’t fit in with the autonomy of the game’s programmed virtuality. Like the player might be a “wild” integer in the game’s system, chasing their own goals, operating on thoughts and desires that aren’t produced by the game’s code, so too is this deer. It is, in fact, an artificial…
11 Executions
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Artist uses GTA V to investigate the motivation behind modern terrorism

There is no logic to it, but it happens with enough regularity to be memorable: A tragedy occurs, and days later, journalists report that if it wasn’t for a quirk of fate it might have taken another victim. To wit, Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jong switched flights from Malaysian Airlines flights MH370 and MH17 at the last minute. The former flight is still unaccounted for and its passengers presumed dead while the latter was shot down over Ukraine. There is no genius in finding a cheaper flight or one with a shorter layover, as De Jong did. Nevertheless, he lived…