Leonardo Magrelli
Leonardo Magrelli
West Of Here
Hardcover
9 x 6.5 inches
80 pages
Yoffy Press
2021
About the Book:
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.
Instead of photographing directly “in-game”, all the images are originally taken by different players around the world, to further shed a light on the ubiquitous proliferation of photography and to create a single narrative out of a “collective memory” of a place that doesn’t exist. While exploring the possibilities and the meanings of photographing a virtual place, the work also addresses the truthfulness of photography and our belief in this medium as a trace of reality.
Collected from the web, edited, cropped and turned to black and white by the author, the images lose their virtual evidence and blur the distinction between false and real. To some, these pictures may resemble 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.
Edited by Leonardo Magrelli
Essays by Brit Salvesen and Mirjam Kooiman
Book review by Joe Cuccio |
West of Here takes the viewer on a journey through one of the most prominent cities in the American West; Los Angeles, California.
The images are a meditation on the classic scenery in this area, showcasing the beautiful sunrise and sunsets, the harsh light that illuminates buildings, roads, and objects, and the skyline that holds this sprawling city together. The compositions follow suit of American West photographers of the past, like Henry Wessel and Robert Adams, focusing on the banal and the everyday.
Intertwined with the conventional beauty demonstrated are some images that throw the viewer into a loop as to how these were created. There are a few images of human figures in the center of the frame showcasing their back to us, and standing at ease with no hint of the next step they aim to take. In addition, there are foggy and hazy images of the city and its outskirts; pictures of the landscape are covered in a mist that sparingly reveals itself in Los Angeles.
Image by Leonardo Magrelli
Image by Leonardo Magrelli
The amazing story behind all of these images is that they come from a virtual world. They are all merely screenshots from the video game Grand Theft Auto 5 and the massive open-world map that was published by Rockstar Games.
To see such a familiar depiction of this city, but then be taken back by the reality that it all was created from a virtual rendition of the actual place is a strange feeling. Not only did it say something about the realistic graphics of the game, but it made a more important commentary on the future of photography as a medium. A viewer with no context into the creative process that took place in the making of this book would almost surely assume it was another book about living in LA, but when you gain more insight you cannot help but be blown away.
With the way in which video games and virtual reality are exponentially growing in quality each day, books of this kind will become more life-like and more creative. Overall, this book utilizes many straight photographic and documentary-style tactics due to the limitations of how one can view the world in this game. Without any context, the images are appealing but appear to be similar to the many images we see come out of photographers living in the Los Angeles area. Since all of them were created via a video game it makes things seem more complex and a stronger statement is being made.
As games become more advanced there will begin to be more freedom to look at that world and a closer relation to how our reality looks every day we wake up. The lines between the images in this book and the images created in the real world are blurred and with further technological advancements, it will only become more challenging to make a distinction between virtually created works and those based in our reality.
Image by Leonardo Magrelli
