Grand Theft Auto V

ESSAY: DON’T CALL IT FOUND FOOTAGE: SANDBOX AS JEU VIDEO VÉRITÉ

Charlotte Clerici, Lucas Azemar, Sandbox (Bac à sable), 2023

One of the most captivating yet overlooked facets of Sandbox, an ethnographic and impressionistic study by Lucas Azémar and Charlotte Cherici of a French Grand Theft Auto V roleplay server, is the filmmakers’ innovative and meticulous process. To fully appreciate the originality of their documentation, it is essential to understand the context in which it was created.

As previously mentioned, Azémar and Cherici encountered the French GTA V roleplay community on Twitch, Amazon’s gaming streaming platform. Roleplay refers to a community of players who assume the identities and behaviors of specific characters, interacting with others in a manner driven by narrative or real-life simulation, diverging from the predefined storyline set by Rockstar Games. This vibrant subculture within the broader GTA V user community is often enhanced through modifications (mods) that enable more detailed interactions, exemplified by well-known platforms such as FiveM and GTA Network. These players choose Twitch as their preferred broadcasting platform, streaming gaming sessions live to an audience that includes both roleplayers and non-roleplayers. Both filmmakers are well-versed in gaming culture. Azémar, in particular, delved into gaming themes in his first film, Life on Earth, which was his graduation project at the prestigious school HEAD (acronym of Haute École d’Art et de Design) in Geneva, Switzerland. Similarly, Cherici has explored the concept of roleplay, though her focus has extended beyond digital environments.

Their first joint endeavor, Sandbox, captures the dynamics of a French roleplaying community in an exploratory and experimental, rather than didactic, style. Azémar and Cherici adopt an ethnographic approach, positioning themselves as both observers and engaged participants. Mirroring the style of Knit’s Island, the documentary eschews traditional talking heads and omniscient narration. Instead, it unfolds through a series of vignettes where players fully embody their chosen identities throughout their interactions. Exceptions occur with the occasional trolls or uninformed users, who are either expelled or gently asked to leave the server, informally “the island”, by the all-seeing referees. To preserve the authenticity essential to this unique form of play, Azémar and Cherici opted to forgo the traditional method of editing found footage collected from Twitch. Instead, they fully immersed themselves in the game’s environment to pursue what we can call a specific kind of jeu video vérité (truthful gaming), the game video essay equivalent of cinema vérité, a documentary filmmaking that combines naturalistic techniques with observational cinema, emphasizing a candid approach to its subjects. 

Jeu vidéo vérité embodies a particular style of game video essay that aims to capture and present video game experiences in a truthful, impressionistic, and immersive manner. This method proves effective and viable, emphasizing the authenticity of virtual experiences through spontaneous and unscripted interactions within digital gaming environments. 

Among the features of jeu vidéo vérité we can identify direct engagement…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Sandbox (Bac à sable)

Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azemar

documentary, 58’, 2023, France

Production: Jérôme Blesson

Screenplay: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Filming: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Editing: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar, Mila Olivier

Music: Simon Averous

Sound: Pierre Oberkampf

Life on Earth

Lucas Azemar

short, 35’, 2019, Switzerland/France 

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VIDEO ESSAY: BAC À SABLE AS GTA V ETHNOGRAPHY

Selected for Cinéma du Réel in 2023, Sandbox (Bac à sable) is the directorial debut of Lucas Azémar and Charlotte Cherici. Entirely shot entirely within a Grand Theft Auto 5roleplay server, this documentary offers a deep dive into a French gamer community that transcends the conventional or “expected” gameplay. 

In gaming jargon, the term sandbox refers to a style of gameplay where players can explore and interact with a world with minimal limitations on their actions. Sandbox games typically offer a high degree of freedom, allowing players to create, modify, or destroy their environment and influence the simulated reality in both minor and significant ways. This can range from constructing buildings to altering the landscape, to creating intricate narratives or scenarios. Given this definition, sandbox as a title for a documentary about roleplay within a game like Grand Theft Auto V is quite apt. In fact, GTA V’s roleplay servers function as a sandbox environment in the truest sense: they provide a framework within which players can live out complex, interwoven lives as characters of their own creation, with the game world serving as an open canvas for their narratives. These servers expand the conventional boundaries of the game, moving beyond its original missions and storylines to embrace a form of play that is driven entirely by player choice and creativity. Players on these servers adopt nuanced character identities and engage in narrative-driven activities, effectively sidelining the original storyline crafted by Rockstar Games. Such depth in interaction is facilitated by mods like FiveM or GTA Network, which make the roleplay experience possible.

Sandbox allows viewers to explore the lives of various characters – doctors, police officers, store owners and workers – each portrayed with unique backgrounds and ambitions. The documentary highlights the importance of server administrators who enforce rules to maintain realism and order, drawing parallels with super partes entities. These administrators are crucial in ensuring adherence to the roleplay’s shared norms and reprimanding those who deviate. Staying in character and respecting the assigned role is non-negotiable. 

Through its ethnographic lens, reminiscent of the approach seen in Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’s Knit’s Island, Sandbox is composed of self-contained vignettes that focus more on standalone, self enclosed narratives rather than recurring characters, with the notable exception of Astrio, the vigilant moderator depicted as a guardian of gameplay integrity, a Watchmen character donning a white suit and a hat, his face covered by a mask.

The film begins intriguingly with a “machinima within a machinima” – a meta-narrative technique where a shootout scene between thugs and special ops officers, viewed by avatars in a Los Santos movie theater, sets the stage. This is followed by a sequence featuring a job interview for a Weazel News cameraperson, possibly an alter ego of the director(s), intended for “research purposes”, illustrating the “free” nature of roleplay environments where participants shape their experiences within the confines of the world they inhabit.

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Sandbox (Bac a sable)

Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

documentary, 58’, 2023, France

Production: Jérôme Blesson, La belle affaire productions

Screenplay: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Filming: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Editing: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar, Mila Olivier

Music: Simon Averous

Sound: Pierre Oberkampf

Mixing: Frédéric Belle

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EVENT: ALICE BUCKNELL: THE ALLUVIALS (APRIL 4 - MAY 5 2024, LOS ANGELES)

 Alice Bucknell's The Alluvials is a groundbreaking hybrid of video game and film. This project, set in a speculative near-future Los Angeles, engages with the the politics of drought and water scarcity through a unique narrative lens, presented at Killscreen’s new gallery space in Los Angeles.

What distinguishes The Alluvials is its commitment to exploring these pressing issues through the perspectives of non-human entities and elemental forces, such as the Los Angeles River, wildfire, and even the storied ghost of P-22, the city's famed mountain lion. The Alluvials is structured as a multi-chapter journey, spread across seven distinct worlds, using a game engine to craft a narrative that oscillates through time. This method allows the artist to explore possible futures and revisited pasts, creating a dynamic storytelling experience that challenges traditional linear narratives. By harnessing technologies like drone mapping, stable diffusion algorithms, and cinematic modding within the Grand Theft Auto V engine, the project crafts a parafictional world that is as visually enthralling as it is thought-provoking.

Each chapter of The Alluvials engages with different strands of speculative fiction and ecological theory in crafting engaging and meaningful narratives. The settings range from a synthetic water corporation’s storefront with a backdrop of burning Malibu, to a desertified downtown Los Angeles haunted by the swarm intelligence of wolves. These vivid scenarios invite players to immerse themselves in a world where a moth and a Joshua tree dream reciprocally in the ruins of the Hoover Dam, presenting a narrative that is both haunting and reflective.

The video game component of The Alluvials, developed in 2024, includes four levels, each set in a distinct environment where players assume the roles of conventionally non-playable characters, ranging from elemental forces to wildlife. This design choice not only diversifies gameplay but also enriches the narrative depth, allowing players to experience the ecological and thematic nuances firsthand. The game critically and creatively explores various gaming genres, such as first-person shooters and open-world explorations, reinterpreted through a speculative ecological lens.

Inspired by queer ecological theory and the concept of “difficult games”, The Alluvials challenges conventional game mechanics that center human players and predictable reward systems. Instead, it invites players to engage with gaming’s other affective capacities - such as failure and nonlinear progression - to reflect on the broader ecological implications of their in-game decisions. This approach not only highlights the potential of games as complex ecological systems but also prompts players to reconsider their relationship with the natural world.

The Alluvials is more than just a game or a machinima; it is a unique, visionary project that merges interactive media, ecological awareness, and speculative worldbuilding to address some of the most pressing issues facing contemporary society. Through its innovative narrative structure and immersive gameplay, it offers a compelling invitation to envision and engage with the future of our planet’s water systems and ecological health. As such, The Alluvials stands as a significant contribution to the fields of new media and environmental storytelling, promising to inspire and challenge its audience in equal measure.

Alice Bucknell is a North American artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Using game engines and speculative fiction, Bucknell’s work explores interconnections of architecture, ecology, magic, and non-human and machine intelligence. Bucknell is generally interested in the limits of scientific knowledge and systems thinking, the weird possibilities of play, and the ecological dimensions of games that can dissolve binaries like humans vs. environment, natural vs. synthetic intelligence, and self vs. world. They are the founder of New Mystics.

All images: Courtesy of the Artist and Killscreen

Alice Bucknell: The Alluvials (RSVP)

Killscreen

April 4th – May 4th 2024

5511 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles, California

Read more about Alice Bucknell, The Alluvials (machinima, 2023); The Alluvials (video game, 2024)

MMF MMXX: PLASTIC FANTASTIC?

Prior to the unveiling of Inner Migration in the Slot Machinima program of the MMF MMXXIV, the British artist, environmentalist, and scholar Andy Hughes had already captured critical acclaim with his first game-based video work, Plastic Scoop, a powerful reflection on climate change and plastic pollution, shot with/in the virtual landscapes of Grand Theft Auto V. To fully appreciate the trajectory of Hughes’ artistic journey from the sun-soaked streets of Los Santos to the neon-lit corridors of Night City, it is essential to revisit this remarkable piece.

Plastic Scoop made its debut in the context of the 2020 Milan Machinima Festival, where it was lauded for its innovative approach to environmental commentary, blending the fictional metropolis created by Rockstar Games with pressing global issues. This work not only serves as a testament to Hughes’s evolving narrative and visual style but also as a cornerstone in the dialogue between digital culture and environmental sustainability.

Even better, Plastic Scoop jolts viewers into confronting the dichotomy between the ludic fantasy and the rapidly deteriorating physical world. Hughes ingeniously appropriates the immersive, hyper-realistic graphics of Grand Theft Auto V, subverting Los Santos and turning escapist power fantasies into canvases for environmental critique. The 24 minute machinima opens with a jarring juxtaposition: a vivid crimson ocean sunset is shattered by missile fire from an ominous helicopter, while archival audio celebrates plastic innovation with an oblivious, hyperbolic zeal. This striking incongruity immediately signals Hughes’s intent to destabilize the boundaries between fabricated digital spaces and real-world ecological crises. We are then introduced to symbolic character vignettes that further this unsettling contrast, including an African American astronaut emerging from the polluted waters to explore a factory as an alien planet, a clown plummeting in slow-motion against decaying industrial backdrops, a man ritualistically shooting plastic bottles and litter on a sidewalk…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Andy Hughes, Plastic Scoop, digital video, color, sound, 23’ 59”, 2019

Andy Hughes, Inner Migration, digital video, color, sound, 10’ 00”, 2023

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MMF MMXXIV: JACKY CONNOLLY

The Milan Machinima Festival is delighted to present Jacky Connolly’s Descent into Hell as part of our Auteur’s Theory program. Join us for a special screening on March 15 2024 at IULM University.

First presented at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2022, Descent into Hell transports viewers into a post-capitalist, dystopian vision of the United States. Crafted through an innovative amalgamation of scenes from the iconic video game Grand Theft Auto V and Connolly’s original animations, this piece diverges from the game’s central narrative of property theft, violence and mayhem. Instead, it delves into the stark realities of everyday life for its characters, navigating through themes of homelessness, illness, loss, patriarchal control, and a pervasive sense of powerlessness. These narratives unfold against the backdrop of Los Angeles’ neon-lit streets, which, despite their brilliance, echo the desolation of a faded dream. Connolly’s work is deeply embedded with the traumatic events of 2020, including police brutality, widespread protests, personal grief stemming from mental health struggles, and the isolating force of the global pandemic. Descent into Hell reflects the artist’s foray into the digital expanse of GTA V during the lockdown, a period marked by a collective yearning for genuine human connection amidst the confines of a virtual escape. The ambient blend of background city sounds and entrancing electronic music further envelops the audience, drawing them into Connolly’s meticulously crafted digital realm, a space that, while offering refuge, prompts reflection on the stark realities of our age of collapse.

Jacky Connolly, born in 1990 in the Lower Hudson Valley, New York, has carved a niche for herself in the digital arts landscape. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography, Art History, and Critical Studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in 2011, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute in 2016. Connolly’s work has been featured in a notable array of solo and duo exhibitions, as well as screenings across prestigious venues. Highlights of her exhibition history include presentations at Downs & Ross in New York, Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn, Peach in Rotterdam, Daata Editions at NADA New York, Kimberly-Klark in Queens, Bus Projects in Melbourne, and Et al. in San Francisco. Her art has also been part of select group exhibitions and screening programs at significant cultural institutions such as the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, D21 in Leipzig, Milan Machinima Festival in Milan, PAF Animation Festival in Olomouc, CZ, Ellis King in Dublin, and Hester in New York, among others. Today Connolly continues to explore the intersection of digital media, storytelling, and the archiving of information, positioning her as a distinctive, unique, and bold voice in contemporary art. Connolly’s Anhedonia (2018) and Ariadne (2019) have been previously shown at the Milan Machinima Festival to great acclaim.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: TOTAL REFUSAL

The Milan Machinima Festival is thrilled to introduce Kinderfilm as part of our Auteur Theory program. Join us for a special screening on March 15 2024 at IULM University.

Kinderfilm, the latest creation of Austria collective Total Refusal (hereby represented by  Adrian Jonas Haim, Michael Stumpf, Robin Klengel), unfolds within the digital spaces of Grand Theft Auto V’s San Andreas. The story centers on a middle aged man named Edgar, who drifts aimlessly through Los Santos and beyond, confined to his car. He’s unsettled by the mechanical, artificial nature of the world around him, where genuine human presence and children are conspicuously absent. This narrative engages with deep questions about the state and direction of a society overwhelmed by vehicles and crime, suggesting a critique of modern societal norms and the loss of human connections. Edgar’s journey takes a significant turn when he follows a yellow school bus, leading him to abandon his vehicle for the first time. This act brings him to the beach, symbolizing a stark contrast to the urban emptiness he leaves behind, and suggesting a possibility for renewal and discovery. Echoing both the aesthetics and concerns of filmmakers like Charlie Kaufman and Kristoffer Borgli, Total Refusal uses the familiar setting of Grand Theft Auto V to explore themes of societal critique and hope. By contrasting the game’s violent and chaotic themes with the innocence of children and the natural beauty of the beach, the film conveys a nuanced view of potential future directions, emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with fundamental human values.

Adrian Jonas Haim, a dynamic presence in Vienna and beyond, engages deeply in the intertwining realms of film and politics. His academic journey led him to the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he pursued studies in Political Science & Experimental Game Cultures. Haim’s diverse creative endeavors span writing, music, and art, all underscored by a keen focus on Marxist theory and the exploration of ideology within cross-media culture. His editorial insights previously enriched the pages of MALMOE Zeitung. As a programmer, he has curated film series that delve into the politics of remembrance, contributing to platforms such as Filmclub Tacheles, the Vienna Jewish Film Festival, and the This Human World Film Festival. In 2020, Haim brought his multifaceted expertise to the Total Refusal collective, furthering its mission to challenge and reinterpret media landscapes.

Robin Klengel operates at the nexus of art and cultural anthropology in Vienna and Graz, bringing a critical eye to the study of urban and digital environments. His academic background in cultural anthropology was honed in Graz and Berlin, equipping him with the tools to research, write, and teach within the sphere of artistic-scientific inquiry. Klengel’s work extends to filmmaking, textual analysis, and the delivery of lectures and courses that bridge the gap between theory and practice. Since 2021, he has served as co-chairman of Forum Stadtpark, an interdisciplinary art and culture space in Graz, demonstrating his commitment to fostering creative dialogue. His role in co-founding the Total Refusal collective in 2018 has been instrumental in shaping its direction and impact.

Michael Stumpf navigates the confluence of philosophy, media, and cultural semiotics with an analytical approach rooted in phenomenology. His studies in Philosophy in Vienna and Media Culture and Art Theories in Linz (unfinished) have provided a foundation for his exploration of popular cultural tropes and their significance. Stumpf’s work transcends disciplinary boundaries, manifesting in artistic endeavors, design projects, and coding, all aimed at interrogating the mechanics of media and culture. As a co-founder of the Total Refusal collective in 2018, Stumpf contributes to its mission with a unique blend of theoretical insight and practical expertise, challenging conventional interpretations of media narratives.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: THOMAS HAWRANKE

We are delighted to present Thomas Hawranke’s Play As Animals at the upcoming Milan Machinima Festival in a new format.

Originally coiceived as a two-channel found footage installation exploring the nuanced existence of animals in the virtual realm of Grand Theft Auto V, Play as Animals is presented as a single-channel video within the context of MMF MMXXIV. This work artfully assembles YouTube clips, video sequences, and sound fragments into a compelling visual narrative, highlighting the often-overlooked animal perspectives within a digital world primarily shaped by human stories. Hawranke examines the portrayal of these virtual beings, reflecting on human stereotypes and addressing the game-engineered discrimination they face. By stepping into the roles of these non-human characters, players are invited to view the game’s world through a fresh lens, challenging established norms and inviting a reevaluation of their interaction with the virtual environment. Indirectly, Hawranke asks the viewers: What insights emerge from exploring a trailer park on all fours, or experiencing the quietude of farm life? How does navigating the urban jungle as a pack alter one’s perception of the city? Does a fin's playful breach of water’s surface convey deeper meanings, and can one truly play with mice while sporting paws?

Born in 1977 in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, Thomas Hawranke is a media artist and researcher whose practice investigates the influence of technology on society and the impact of computational logic onto human-animal-machine relationships. In his eclectic interventions, Hawranke operates at the intersection of performance and video art: a central concern of his is bringing to the surface the ideologies that inform everyday life. Hawranke graduated in Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and received a PhD from the Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Germany, with a dissertation on the modification of video games, also known as modding, as a method for artistic research. Since 2005, he has been a member of susigames, an independent art label founded in 2003 that investigates alternative gaming’s approaches, and he is the co-founder of the Paidia Institute in Cologne. His works have been presented at several exhibitions and festivals, including the zkm_gameplay in Karlsruhe and the RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES PARIS/BERLIN. Hawranke lives and works in Cologne, Germany. His recent collaboration with Lasse Sherfigg, Colossal Cave Adventure - The Movie, was featured on VRAL. 

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

ARTICLE: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH VS. THE MADONNA-WHORE COMPLEX

As VRAL current solo exhibition focuses on Georgie Roxby Smith’s new Blood Paintings series, we aim to illuminate her legacy of confrontational game-based art by examining a pivotal early work, Lara Croft, Domestic Goddess I & II, which re-cast the Tomb Raider heroine as a proto-tradwife in her most challenging mission.

The endlessly looping cries of gaming icon Lara Croft echo incongruously over household chores in Georgie Roxby Smith’s 2013 performance and Second Life intervention, Lara Croft, Domestic Goddess I & II. The female explorer’s torture screams punctuate mundane, uneventful acts like washing and ironing clothes. The superimposition of discordant feminine spheres spotlights the bias still dogging video games’ staunchest female characters today. Despite efforts celebrating Lara Croft’s emotional depth and resolve through various reboots and remakes, her graphic anguish feels all too familiarly pinned to outmoded visions of femininity from the franchises’ past.

Having already probed systemic dangers subtly encoded for female avatars through works like The Fall Girl in 2012, here Smith spotlights the lingering identity tensions constraining Lara Croft. The Tomb Raider icon embodies a discombobulating identity bifurcation: aspiring towards fierce, capable heroism on one hand while still confined as an ornament for the traditionally masculine demographic’s visual greed alone on the other. As Croft’s strained persona splits unevenly between feminist icon and fetishized pin-up, she exemplifies unreconciled contradictions of projecting strength while submitting to the objectifying male gaze. By confronting this demeaning binary — akin to the  dichotomy informing the Madonna-whore complex mapping women into mutually exclusive camps of saintly virtue or debased promiscuity — Smith indicts the media forces that tokenize liberatory gestures yet withhold full multidimensional womanhood under paternalistic pretense…


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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

George Roxby Smith, Fair Game [Run like a girl], in-game performance, machinima (color, sound, 13’ 56”), 2015.

Georgie Roxby Smith, Lara Croft, Domestic Goddess I & II, Lara Croft death noises from Tomb Raider (2013), 3D model, Second Life intervention, looped continuously for duration.

Georgie Roxby Smith, The Fall Girl, in-game performance and machinima (color, sound, 8’ 07”), 2012.

Peggy Ahwesh, She Puppet, digital video, color, sound, 15’, 2001.

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ARTICLE: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH AND THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE NPC RUNNER

As VRAL current solo exhibition focuses on Georgie Roxby Smith’s new Blood Paintings series, we aim to illuminate her legacy of confrontational game-based art by examining a pivotal early work, Fair Game [Run Like A Girl]. Our analysis centers on overlapping themes in Smith’s practice of visual confrontation around gaming’s ingrained normalization of violence towards feminine identity and representation...

In her 2015 performance Fair Game [Run Like A Girl], Georgie Roxby Smith hijacks the marginalized female non-playable characters in Grand Theft Auto V, stretching their flight animations into disturbing prey. As her sadistic avatar stalks and toys with these sexualized bots in the streets (and hills!) of Los Santos, their loops of cowering and screaming indict the misogyny hard-coded into this digital Californication. 

Before examining the work, the ominous title warrants exploration. As Emma Griffin explains in her monumental work, “fair game” historically traces back to the hunting fields of 19th century Britain, where it was used to denote legal and ethical parameters around which animals could be hunted during a given season. Anything deemed within the boundaries of “fair game” – open for sporting, capture, or killing – was considered unprotected prey. Already by the late 1800s however, the idiomatic implications had extended more broadly to refer to anything – or for that matter, anyone– that dominant powers or social forces considered appropriate targets for criticism, ridicule, sexualization or attack without fear of consequences or concern over consent. Victim blaming was implicit; in the cultural view, targets labeled “fair game” were themselves presumed to invite trouble or violence due to defiant or nonconforming attitudes, appearances, or behavior.

In choosing Fair Game as the title of her intervention, Smith knowingly evokes the historical associations of marking feminine bodies as vulnerable game ripe for one-sided, unethical hunting by more powerful and forceful antagonists. Her interrogation lays bare gaming ecosystems and cultures enabling the chasing and tormenting of women without consequences under the veneer of play and the pretext of fun. Let’s now concentrate on the second part of the title. The bracketed “run like a girl” also carries insidious coding limitations into culture. The phrase has history mocking supposedly inherent feminine weakness and first surfaced as a comment denouncing “inadequate masculinity”. Specifically, it critiqued women’s alleged lack of power, speed or coordination.. 

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Georgie Roxby Smith, Fair Game [Run like a girl], in-game performance, machinima (color, sound, 13’ 56”), 2015

Georgie Roxby Smith, 99 Problems [WASTED], in-game performance, machinima (color, sound, 4’ 45”), 2014

Georgie Roxby Smith, Blood Paintings, digital video, color, sound, 11’ 06”, 2024

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NEWS: 2GIRLS1COMP’S MEANWHILE IN LOS SANTOS (DISSOCIATION NATION)

The 2girls1comp collective strikes back with a new groundbreaking mod for Grand Theft Auto V titled Meanwhile in Los Santos.

Marco De Mutiis and Alexandra Pfammatter’s new mod utilizes GTA V’s expansive open world environment to spotlight the inner lives of NPCs that normally serve purely functional roles for the player. As the player drives or walks around Los Santos, the camera suddenly shifts perspectives, cutting away from the playable protagonist to focus instead on a random NPC. The player observes them frozen in place, trapped in an introspective moment as internal monologues and existential musings appear as subtitle text.

These inner dialogues touch on themes of free will, identity, purpose, and the NPCs’ perception of themselves as fictional entities within a simulated Grand Theft Auto world. The writings pull verbatim quotes from real world Twitter rants about simulation theory, giving the NPCs a meta awareness of their own artificial construct. This blurs the lines between the “real” physical realm we inhabit and Los Santos’ virtual reality. The project is somewhat reminiscent of Miranda July’s Extras and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.

From a gameplay perspective, Meanwhile in Los Santos adds unpredictable narrative texture to Rockstar Games’ open world, requiring players to patiently sit with and contemplate the inner turmoil of NPCs they would otherwise ignore. It also formally challenges the dominant and singular perspective players embody when controlling GTA’s violence-prone antihero protagonists. Losing control to focus on an NPC injects more humanity and plurality of experiences into Los Santos.

The mod also makes a sly sociopolitical statement, appropriating the controversial NPC meme that depicts people who lack autonomy of thought as scripted video game characters. Meanwhile in Los Santos suggests that dismissing others as mindless NPCs only serves to suppress legitimate interiority and different kinds of agency. It argues for more empathy, even for fictional denizens like those occupying the satirical world of GTA V.

ARTICLE: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH, AVATAR MARTYR

VRAL is currently presenting Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings as a single channel video. To fully appreciate the significance of this series, we are exploring various artworks in her oeuvre. Our discussion continues with the 2014 in-game performance and machinima 99 Problems [WASTED], in which she lays bare the destructive ideological apparatus turning a woman from playable protagonist to disposable puppet. An apparatus revealed in all its banality through this avatar’s hopelessness before the blasé machinery of suicide.

A scantily clad, blood splattered female avatar takes position underneath a grimy Los Santos overpass, nonchalantly pressing a pistol barrel to her temple. Face impassive, she pulls the trigger without hesitation or emotion. As the crack of the gunshot fades, her body collapses limply to the ground. But the scene soon repeats in a different setting; the nameless woman reappears in different locations of an ersatz Los Angeles, apparently unscathed. She promptly turns the gun on herself once more. And then again. And again. Welcome to Georgie Roxby Smith’s 99 Problems [WASTED].

Rather than embrace the free-roaming escapades and rags-to-riches schemes promised by Rockstar Games, Smith pursues vicarious self-destruction via her avatar in order to critique the game’s normalization of disproportionate feminine victimization and sidelining. Each gunshot shrieks for recognition by game publishers and players alike of women’s ritualized vulnerability, marginalization, misrepresentation, and fleeting relevance in adventures coded around masculine power fantasies and patriarchal prerogatives.

The settings chosen by Smith for her suicide(s) add another layer of meaning through provocative juxtapositions. Her avatar enacts public immolation before storefronts boasting suggestive names such as “Heroin Chic” to “Hole”. Likewise, the protagonist’s ritualized demise unfolds around caricatures of consumerism and vanity, as selfie-snapping tourists remain oblivious next to the bloodshed. A rather explicit ad for “hamburger meat” near a bus stop functions as a background for another death. Boys toys, i.e., signifiers of masculinity, also frame some vignettes, as sports cars and firearms signifying power and control. Through these judiciously chosen environmental factors, Smith further implicates the saturating messages that enable the devaluing of women’s lives and identities across societies both real and virtual. 

The ceaseless repetition produces surprising effects: the initial shock of Smith’s female avatar brutally committing suicide soon gives way among viewers to contrasting feelings ranging from desensitized ennui to warped anticipation…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

George Roxby Smith, 99 Problems [WASTED], in-game performance, machinima (color, sound, 4’ 45”), 2014

Georgie Roxby Smith, Blood Paintings, digital video, color, sound, 11’ 06”, 2024

Brody Condon, Suicide Solution, DVD documentation of in-game performance, 19’, 2004

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH’S BLOOD PAINTINGS

Georgie Roxby Smith, Blood Paintings, digital video, 2024, still

VRAL is currently showcasing Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings series as a single channel machinima. Today we take a closer look at her process to highlight key themes and contextualize her aesthetic choices.

At first glimpse, the lurid black and red canvases of Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings betray little of the cold, mechanical violence from whence they emerged. Yet the intra-triptych of videos, prints and photographs accompanying each finished piece document one of the most conceptually daring artistic processes within game art in recent memory, bridging virtual chaos and physical creation.

The genesis occurs not with “traditional” brushes, but with a stolen sedan careening down the endless freeways of Grand Theft Auto V’s sprawling fictional city, Los Santos. Smith ritualistically mows down random pedestrian after pedestrian, indifferent to the piled corpses littering her wake, or rather, using them as a source material. Through an online machinima feed, these virtual “vehicular blood harvests” stream to screens in her corporeal studio. Eyes locked on the carnage, the vampiric artist enacts swift gestural translations of each fresh victim into pigment. Ram, observe, render, repeat: a piece takes shape with each new mark responding to lives callously extinguished in a doom loop of hit-and-hit-and-hit-and-drag.

When the gameplay session concludes, having claimed several bystanders sacrificially for the sake of her work, Smith reviews the tapes from alternate camera angles. She zooms in on singular moments of compressed brutality, photoshopping images together with her physical canvas snapshots. These digital/physical hybrids form the third component in presenting each unique Blood Painting. Beside them, innocuous “art selfies” feature the artist clutching her macabre works with almost maternal pride rather than horror at their genesis.

These self congratulatory portraits seem jarringly incongruous beside the disturbing machinima footage of pedestrian carnage used to inspire…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Georgie Roxby Smith

Blood Paintings

digital video, color, sound, 11’ 06”, 2024, Australia

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EVENT: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH (FEBRUARY 2 - 15 2024, ONLINE)

Blood Paintings

digital video, color, sound, 11’ 06”, 2024, Australia

Created by Georgie Roxby Smith

Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings series merges digital gaming spaces and physical art. Each piece comprises three distinct components: a machinima documenting repetitive violence against GTA V pedestrians, intimate selfies showcasing the finished abstract paintings that violence yields, and hybrid digital/physical prints combining in-game imagery with organic artistic styles. This unique, multi-format presentation offers insight into both the meticulous creative process and the provocative contrast between clinical virtual acts and tactile human artistry.

Georgie Roxby Smith is a pioneering digital artist who uses gaming, AI, video, and performance to probe modern identity and reality. Her work focuses on representing marginalized groups, especially women, in online environments. Artworks like The Fall Girl and 99 Problems [WASTED] expose violence against female video game characters, critiquing the misogyny embedded in gaming worlds. Smith’s bold, confrontational, socially-engaged art has exhibited globally and earned prestigious grants and residencies. As virtual and actual boundaries blur, her practice reveals hard truths about identity and systemic bias persisting digitally. Blending emerging tech and mass media, Smith dispels notions of liberation in our increasingly visual world. Her immersive works harbor the probing questions that will propel digital art to its next avant-garde evolution.

EVENT: STEFAN PANHANS AND ANDREA WINKLER (JANUARY 5 - 18 2024, ONLINE)

Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1

digital video, color, sound, 16’ 13”, 2016-2017, Germany

Created by Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler

Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1 is a 16-minute video work combining experimental film, music video, performance, and contemporary dance which examines the stilted behaviors and motions of avatars controlled by humans in video games. The avatars demonstrate awkward gestures, repetitive motions, and failures to perform actions. Groups of live dancers and actors physically reenact these movements in a series of situations. Their bodies recreate the avatars’ gestures and repetitions. The performers interact with constructed sets and environments that resemble video game aesthetics. The scenes cut rapidly between the choreographed reenactments and footage excerpted from the games, literally juxtaposing the human and the post-human.

Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler explore contemporary media and its effects on the mind and body through video, photography, installation, and text. Panhans (born in Hattingen, Germany) undertakes a mental archaeology of hyper mediatization and digitalization, examining their influence on the mind and power relations in society. His work also engages with racism, celebrity worship, stereotypes, and diversity. He studied at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Winkler (born in Fällanden, Zurich, Switzerland) examines similar themes through sculpture, video, and installation. She studied at Slade School of Fine Art in London under John Hilliard and Bruce McLean, after completing a degree in Visual Communication at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg under Wolfgang Tillmans and Gisela Bullacher. Together, the duo create interdisciplinary works that critically investigate contemporary media culture and human-technology interactions through experimental aesthetics. Their collaborations take the form of video, performance, and installation.



ARTICLE: ADRIFT IN THE UNCANNY VALLEY

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. To provide context to this remarkable work, we are discussing the Serbian-German artist’ oeuvre. Today we take a closer look at In Between identities.

With his groundbreaking machinima In between identities (2015) and the subsequent video installation This water gives back no Images (2017), Berlin-based filmmaker Aleksandar Radan established himself in the mid-2010s as a rising talent probing the porous boundaries between concrete and virtual spaces. Appropriating assets from blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto V, Radan constructs eerie, liminal worlds where meaning frays, and questions of identity become as glitchy as the discordant landscapes he frames.

Originally presented in April 2020 as VRAL #2, In between identities sees Radan hijack GTA V, rewriting portions of code through modding to direct lonely avatars stripped of context, narrative, and purpose. Bereft of missions, these figures wander a murky, humid, deserted city, their awkward movements and apparent disorientation at odds with the usual bombastic pace of the “conventional” gameplay. Dressed incongruously in bathing suits or fur coats, slicing cucumbers over their eyes, the mute characters perform uncanny rituals before mirrors and displays. Repeated motifs like photographs and screens highlight themes of fragmented selfhood and surveillance. Radan’s fixed camera angles hold uncomfortably long on incidents of mundane absurdity as his non-player characters break scripted behaviors. Static shots are interrupted by the camera’s jerky movements as the artist is filming the computer monitor where the action is unfolding, zooming in and out abruptly, rather than recording the game footage via a dedicated card. The removal of soundtracks enhances the sensation of drifting outside reality.

This early experiment crystallized Radan’s impulse to short-circuit gaming conventions via artistic intervention…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

In between identities, digital video, color, sound, 8’ 50”, 2015, Germany

This water gives back no Images, 3-channel video installation, 6’ 12”, loop, 2017, Germany; presented on VRAL as a single-channel digital video

All images courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

EVENT: ALEKSANDAR RADAN (NOVEMBER 24 - DECEMBER 7 2023, ONLINE)

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6:12 min, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

Created by Aleksandar Radan

Originally conceived as a 3-channel video installation, This water gives back no Images features a lush, tropical digital landscape created using modified scenes from Grand Theft Auto. We see palm trees bending in the wind and hear soft rustling sounds and bird chirps. An avatar moves through this landscape, wading into the water. As it bathes, the figure seems to dissolve into the ripples and reflections in the water, its contours blurring into the surroundings. About halfway through the video, a grainy black and white recording of Nina Simone singing “Images” (1966) appears embedded within the video game aesthetic. This water gives back no Images questions notions of identity and reflection within an increasingly digital world. 

A German artist born in 1988, Aleksandar Radan studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach. His work explores digital media, focusing on themes of technological disconnection and virtual identities. Radan alters computer game environments through modding, filming live action footage within the modified spaces. His experimental short films juxtapose programmed avatars with improvised gestures, bringing the virtual and physical worlds into collision. Radan’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT JORDY VEENSTRA’S REGRESSION 4

VRAL is currently showcasing Regression 4, Jordy Veenstra’s latest installment in his ongoing ludo-topographical project. To accompany the screening, we are delighted to present a critical examination of Veenstra's monumental series Regression in video essay form.

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Conceived and developed by Dutch artist and filmmaker Jordy Veenstra, the ongoing Regression series uniquely captures experimental machinima within Rockstar’s ever expanding Grand Theft Auto’s urban and rural territories. Using an array of mods and the Rockstar Editor, Veenstra produced avant-garde studies of these detailed spaces from distinct vantage points. From 2019, Veenstra has been producing four installments, all showcased on VRAL. 

While linked thematically, each film focuses on different contexts within specific Grand Theft Auto maps. As an auteur, Veenstra explores overlooked corners, finding beauty in transformed gameplay. His rigorous approach reimagines chaotic worlds as meditative landscapes.

Regression’s title refers to the illusion of perfection in Grand Theft Auto’s dystopia, perceiving it as societal decline, deterioration, and barbarism. Behind the glitzy façade, flaws and cracks emerge, satirized via aggressive advertising, profanity, and lawlessness. Through distorted, dreamlike aesthetics, the films unpack the dissonance between illusion and grim realities. Visually embracing both analog and digital, a grainy 24fps texture emulates film alongside sweeping 4K vistas. Dynamic grading heightens contrast and painterly scenes. This fusion pays homage to cinema’s legacy while exploring the frontiers of simulation. Veenstra eschews narrative conventions such as voice over or didactic illustration in favor of a more improvisational production. Loose frameworks guide raw gameplay capture while editing choices shape the experiences. 

Using the embedded Rockstar Editor, Veenstra cuts, frames, and exports clips from Grand Theft Auto V. His shots feature depth of field, enhancing cinematic illusions in-engine. With the EVE mod, scenes export at 24fps, evoking the look and feel of celluloid. Veenstra coined the expression “cinematic distortion” to indicate techniques transforming gameplay into cinematic aesthetics. Key features include:

— Filmic aspect ratios over typical 16:9;   

— 24fps over higher game frame rates;

— Extensive color grading to shift familiar hues;

— Analog artifacts like grain and motion blur;     

— Cinematic framing and pacing;

— Intuitive filming focused on spaces rather than plot.

The outcome distances the polished CG interactivity of the original games for the richness of celluloid. Veenstra’s distortion process elicits a dreamlike, glitchy texture, expanding and simultaneously merging machinima and cinema. Through strategic post-production transformations, Veenstra’s meticulous workflow sculpts raw gameplay into textured cinematic experiences, transcending Grand Theft Auto’s digital gloss.

Specialized mods from the active modding community enrich creative possibilities. Veenstra leverages these fan-made tools, showcasing remarkable imagination alongside his vision.

The Dutch filmmaker redefines player relationships with familiar game spaces. Chaotic criminal playgrounds transform into serene environments appreciating underlying aesthetics. The films play with realism and artificiality, using convincing illusions yet reveling in fanciful virtual possibilities. Through skillful craft, Veenstra elicits resonance and humanity from violent game worlds. His cinematic distortion recalibrates familiar mayhem into a canvas for poignant artistic expression.

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Jordy Veenstra

Regression 1, digital video, color, sound, 3’ 19”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 2, digital video, color, sound, 3’ 23”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 3, digital video, color, sound, 9’ 49”, 2019, The Netherlands

Regression 4, digital video (4k Scope), color, sound, 13’ 51” (original), 2023, The Netherlands

Joris Ivens, De Brug (The Bridge), black and white, silent, 15”, 1928, The Netherlands

Bert Haanstra

Glas (Glass), color, sound, 15”, 1958, The Netherlands

Zoo, black and white, sound, 11”, 1960, The Netherlands

Vittorio De Sica

Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves), black and white, sound, 93”, 1948, Italy

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

EVENT: JORDY VEENSTRA (OCTOBER 13 - OCTOBER 26 2023, ONLINE)

Regression 4

digital video 4096 x 1716 (4k Scope), color, sound (Stereo, -14LUFS; Stereo, -23LUFS), 13’ 51” (original), 2023, The Netherlands

Created by Jordy Veenstra

Three years have passed since the unveiling of Veenstra’s Regression 3, a machinima that explored the aerial expanses of Grand Theft Auto V’s vast territory. Today, we stand at a significant juncture as Regression 4 further solidifies the significance of the series. This installment takes audiences on a highly experimental cinematic journey, focusing on the underwater realms of Los Santos and Blaine County and some of the many secrets found within.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, experimental filmmaker, machinima artist, and front end developer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects videogames, experimental narratives and technology through the medium of machinima and his “practice of distortion” framework, consisting of rules and values that revolve around the “distortion” of otherwise clear video-game generated images and audio, with the intent of moving away from perceiving the film as a “product from a videogame” and more as a “product of cinema” by using various values found in traditional cinema such as cinematic resolutions and aspect ratios, 24 frames per second, color grading, motion blur and grain. Veenstra’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 2020 and 2022 editions of the Milan Machinima Festival, while Regression Trilogy has been featured on VRAL in 2020.

NEWS: TURNING GTA V’S SAN ANDREAS INTO THE PLATFORM FORMERLY KNOWN AS “TWITTER”

In recent months, the modding community has been abuzz with the groundbreaking work of the elusive collective known as 2girls1comp. They have redefined the practice of altering, customizing, and reinventing Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), pushing the boundaries of what is possible at the crossroad of the avant-garde and the vernacular. In a manner reminiscent of the Situationist International, their work is both ironic and iconic, infused with elements of culture jamming and tactical media. Their approach to modding is simultaneously political and playful. 

Their latest mod, titled SANANDREAS.TXT , turns GTA V’s replica of California, i.e., San Andreas, into a social media platform. In other words — no pun intended — this modification allows players to write messages all over the map of GTA V, both literally and metaphorically. Those “captions” or “overlays” can be read by everyone who has the mod installed. To use the mod’s messaging system, player must simply hit the F10 key on their keyboard to open a text box, type messages of up to 94 characters, and press ENTER to share them with all mod users, making their messages visible at the specified location within the game world, enabling a collective and shared textual experience.

Possibilities are endless: San Andreas can be transformed into a poetic space. Haikus could be disseminated everywhere. Hints and tips. Casual observations. Instructions. Revelations. Meta play. However, early experiments with the mod have taken a more prosaic turn, with players dropping insults and expletives as they did in previous social media. “We welcome users leaving Twitter/X to SanAndreas.txt” the collective state with an (un)intentional dose of recklessness. By transforming GTA V’s game world into a platform for social commentary, 2girls1comp actively disrupted the prevailing norms and encouraged players to participate in virtual dialogue. The resulting (asynchronous) conversations, in turn, shed light on the key values, top priorities, and main interests of the GTA V community. As they state in their communiqué:

“we do moderate hate speech, but so far, we decided to leave everything in, because we are looking at the mirror of the GTA V gamer community […] we will post screenshots of the less offense and more creative ones on the mod site. the game is […] a messaging service for friends, a piece of concrete poetry, a meme.”

By now, the collective’s modus operandi is clear: their prankish attitude is loaded with social criticism. For instance, last Summer, 2girls1comp introduced a mod titled F*** the Policy. When the player’s avatars are being actively sought by the in-game cops, they are read their rights, which amusingly includes the verbose Rockstar Games End User License Agreement (EULA). This clever twist not only injects humor into the game but also serves as a satirical commentary on the often overlooked legalities in the gaming industry. 

2girls1comp’s repertoire extends beyond the realms of satire. Their modding experiments include titles like Towards and Philosophy of the Photo Daddy which combines Vilém Flusser’s theories on the medium of photography with the stereotypes surrounding the so called “photo fanatics”. Specifically, this mod challenges the dogmatic ideas of what constitutes a “good photograph” advanced by the infamous daddies. On the other end of the spectrum is The GTA V Piano of the Dead a more whimsical and zany creation that defies conventional gameplay norms. As of today, it’s the collective’s oldest and most popular mod, with approximately 800 downloads. All of their creations received 5 stars out of 5 and a variety of colorful comments.

In a prior modification, aptly named Every thing, 2girls1comp draws inspiration from the innovative concepts of game designers Keita Takahashi and David OReilly. This mod ambitiously transforms San Andreas into a boundless realm of possibilities. Its core function involves systematically spawning every object within the GTA V prop database, pushing the game to its limits until it inevitably succumbs under the sheer weight of “every thing,” resulting in a spectacular crash.

2girls1comp’s modding endeavors in GTA V represent a unique blend of artistic expression and sociopolitical commentary, deliberately disseminated within vernacular rather than avantgarde spaces, i.e., one of GTA V’s most popular modding sites. Their work challenges the conventional boundaries of gaming, inviting players to engage in critical discourse within the virtual world and the Artworld.

As they continue to push the envelope with their innovative creations, the modding community eagerly anticipates what 2girls1comp will offer next, bridging the gap between the virtual and the real in thought-provoking ways. Their upcoming creation (release date: “soon”) is titled “MEANWHILE IN LOS SANTOS (DISSOCIATION NATION)”.

Read more about 2 girls 1 computer, a force to be reckoned with in the modding-sphere.

ARTICLE: LOST IN THE LOOP

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

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VRAL is currently showcasing Firas Shehadeh’s Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another — Rehearsal (2023). To contextualize his work, we are looking at several of his most recent project. We began yesterday with There, Where You Are Not (2022), a series of performative screening on the nature of digital culture. Today, we continue our exploration of There, Where You Are Not.

We are pleased to present a second component of Firas Shehadeh’s ambitious 2022 multimedia project, There, Where You Are Not: T,WYAN_appendix, abbreviated as T,WYAN_appendix. Although the artist describes it as an improvisational sound performance, T,WYAN_appendix is something else altogether: A comprehensive auditory odyssey that delves into the multi-layered landscape of contemporary digital culture. By meticulously weaving together sonic and visual elements, this element of Shehadeh’s larger multimedia project serves as a visceral expedition into memes, video games, network spirituality, emotional landscapes, hybridity, and additional scapes that inform our online discourse. The performance was originally presented on October 15 2022 at the Singapore Art Museum as part of the Singapore Viennale 2022 Named Natasha. An excerpt is available here.

T,WYAN_appendix also exists as a 32’ machinima piece, intended as a sophisticated companion to Meme Without Irony, another machinima crafted within the environment of Grand Theft Auto V. T,WYAN_appendix serves as a revelatory exposition of the hidden mechanics of video gaming. It focuses on the “game before (under?) the game” or perhaps, one might argue, the “real game,” pulling back the curtain on the intricacies that generally remain concealed from the end-user.

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Work cited

Firas Shehadeh

There, Where You Are Not, sound performance, improvisation, various lengths, hereby presented as a digital video, color, sound, 32’ 26”, 2022, Palestine

Firas Shehadeh

The View From ‘No Man's Land’, print, edition of 300, softcover, 204 pages, 2020, 104 x 176 mm.

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.