Procedural Generation is a series of images taken in the digital city of Los Santos within the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Released in September, 2013, GTA V gave players the ability to take pictures inside its fictional world.
Given the game's high level of detail and realism, I began treating the virtual streets as those in real life. The experience felt eerily real. Yet the characters in these images, are no more than lines of code employed to heighten the realism of the game. However, they seem to be aware of the fact that their existence relies on being within the photographer's field of vision. Due to the procedural generation used in the game, when the photographer turns a corner, his subject vanishes. These photographs depict an alienated, lonely, brief existence.
The culture industry exists to keep us preoccupied with things other than our trodden lives. Still, it becomes evident that this entertainment is an authentic representation of our realities, and reflects its melancholy. As stated by Baudrillard, the "simulation threatens the difference between the true and the false, and the real and imaginary." In Procedural Generation, I use this new medium to push against the far edge of the Real, while questioning its stability.
