Urbain Altéré
digital video (3840 x 2160), colour, sound, 3’ 25”, 2024, Switzerland
created by Pascal Greco
In Urbain Altéré (2024), Pascal Greco expands his investigation into the aesthetic and conceptual potential of game environments by shifting from still in-game photography to machinima. Created entirely within Stray (BlueTwelve Studio, 2022), this video navigates a virtual cityscape that evokes a speculative Hong Kong, now abstracted through layers of simulation, ambient sound, and procedural texture. The work eschews narrative in favour of observational drift, capturing overlooked architectural surfaces such as air conditioners, stairwells, neon signage, crumbling facades with a sensibility drawn from both street photography and cinematic slow time. Greco’s camera lingers on the habitual and uneventful, reframing synthetic urban detritus as material for meditative study. Backed by an AI-generated soundtrack, Urbain Altéré is less a portrait of a place than an ambient excavation of atmosphere, surface, and disappearance. In traversing this hyperrealistic non-place, Greco probes the boundaries of authorship, memory, and image-making in a context where photography is no longer indexical, but remediated through simulation.
Pascal Greco is a Swiss-Italian filmmaker and photographer based in Geneva. A self-taught artist working across cinema, photography, and digital media, his work explores the interplay between architecture, landscape, and technological mediation. His practice spans urban typologies, natural environments, and increasingly, virtual spaces generated within video games. His projects have been exhibited internationally and featured in The Guardian, Vice, CNN, and Monocle. Key publications include Kyoshu (2007), No Cliché (2013), and Hong Kong Neon (2021), a visual study of a disappearing cityscape. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Greco turned to digital environments, producing Place(s) (2021) in Death Stranding, and Place(s) Space(s) (2024), a machinima exploring duration and presence. Recent works such as Kwai Shing West Estate and Urbain Altéré (both 2024) continue his investigation into memory, simulation, and digital authorship.
