EVENT: FERNANDO GOMES PEREIRA (JULY 19—AUGUST 1 2024, ONLINE)

Light Study

digital video (1280 x 720), color, sound, 28’ 32”, 2015, Brazil

created by Fernando Pereira Gomes

 

In Light Study, a male avatar from Grand Theft Auto V stands unwavering, gazing into the camera for nearly thirty minutes as weather and light conditions shift subtly yet continuously, painting the scene with an ever-changing palette. The camera remains mostly fixed, with slight movements adding to the contemplative stillness. Dominant wind sounds blend with ambient city noises, creating an immersive backdrop. The artist discovered this scene by accident when the game idled into screen-saver mode. He noticed the light changing on the avatar’s face from morning to night and back. Fascinated by this passage of time, he recorded the scene, furthering his exploration of digital realms and their parallels with our experience of life and time.

Fernando Pereira Gomes was born in São Paulo, Brasil in 1993, currently living and working in Paonia, Colorado. After spending his teenage years in Europe, Gomes moved to New York where he earned his BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In New York, he created a body of street photography depicting life in the city, seeking moments of stillness and poetry within the ever buzzing metropolis. In 2014, his groundbreaking in-game photography series Procedural Generation garnered international attention, both in print and online, culminating in a solo exhibition curated by Alexandra Ungern-Sternberg at Ateliê Alê in São Paulo, Brazil, titled Geração Processual. Additionally, selected images were featured in the group exhibition Transition at the Y Gallery in Minsk, Belarus, also in 2014. Gomes’s work has been presented at prominent venues such as the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Miami-Project, and Photo-LA.

 

EVENT: ELIZABETH DESINTAPUTRI (MAY 24—JUNE 6 2024, ONLINE)

Elizabeth Desintaputri

Ascending Men

digital video, color, sound, 1’ 44”, 2024, Indonesia

May 24 - June 6 2024

introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

 

In Ascending Men, Elizabeth Desintaputri exploits the virtual topography of Grand Theft Auto V as a canvas for digital experimentation, interweaving modding techniques with the capabilities of Rockstar Editor. This approach not only challenges the boundaries of the game’s inherent visual and technical capacities but also recontextualizes the medium itself as a tool for artistic creation. The work is a digital simulacrum, where the interface between player and creator blurs, reflecting on the fluidity and permeability of contemporary digital identities.

Elizabeth Desintaputri is a photographer and digital media artist born and raised in Indonesia, now based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Her work intricately weaves together cultural, political, and social themes, with a particular focus on social commentary. Desintaputri’s artistic inquiry extends into the capabilities and societal impacts of digital media, exploring and challenging the cultural and social aspects embedded within it. Currently, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Camera Arts at Hochschule Luzern (HSLU) in Design, Film und Kunst, with an expected graduation year of 2024. Prior to this, she completed a foundational course at Zürich Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) in 2021, where she began to hone her skills in visual storytelling and digital arts.

EVENT: BENOIT PAILLÉ (OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 11 2021, ONLINE)

HYPER TIMELAPSE GTAV (CROSSROAD OF REALITIES)

Benoit Paillé

machinima, sound, color, 2’ 20”, 2014 (Canada) 

vral.org

A time-lapse is a creative filming and video editing technique consisting in the active manipulation of the frame rate, that is, the number of images, or frames, that appear in a second of video. In most videos, the frame rate and playback speed coincide. In a time-lapse video, however, the frame rate is stretched out far more: when played back at average speed, time appears to be sped up. In 2014, Benoit Paillé created a seminal video time lapse of Grand Theft Auto V, as part of his investigation of photographic practices in video games, Crossroads of Realities. The result is a breathtaking taxi ride accompanied by an intense jazzy score. 

Benoit Paillé is a self-taught French-Canadian photographer who lives and works in Québec, Canada. After studying biology for three years in a CÉGEP (a publicly funded college providing technical, academic, vocational or a mix of programs in Québec), he turned to the visual arts and decided to explore photography. According to his bio, Paillé sees himself as “a hyper realist painter” whose photographs document “an altered state of mind”. His work has been exhibited in Canada, Japan, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Moscow, and Ukraine. Among other things, he photographed speculative fiction writer William Gibson for the New Yorker magazine. 

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