Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Many players will feel that there is something beyond the game itself at this moment, but it is difficult to describe it in any words.

Lin Boshan's first strong impulse to create photography through games was when he played Ancient Scrolls 5.

As he was walking through the boundless snow of Skyline Province, he suddenly felt something. It was difficult for him to capture the feeling in a simple way, so he simply picked up the camera and took a few pictures at the screen.

(Lin Boshan, "Untitled", the material is taken from "Ancient Scrolls 5") this kind of behavior seems strange at first glance. Once posted in the bar, you can see how much netizens have spared no effort in the popular science screenshot function. But in Lin Boshan's view, a simple screenshot does not reflect his experience at that moment in Ancient Scrolls 5.

The artist's imaginary Skyline province is rendered into a digital signal, transformed into colored pixels projected on the screen, and reflected into his retina through dust and particles in the air. A series of hazy errors caused by color deviation and scattering must be captured from the same perspective of the human eye.

"when I visited Skyline Province, I forgot to fight and was attracted by the snow-capped mountain glaciers in the north and got caught in a small sand table. I tried to confuse the boundary between game and reality, so I ignored the Flying Dragon and only pressed a single shutter on the screen when the picture was in line with experience, so as to a certain tradition of landscape photography. Just the movement of pixels on the screen made me move excitedly as if I were walking in the snow."

Lin Boshan's latest work, Empire, is based on Steel ambition V and Victoria II. The modeling of these two games is rough, and the screenshot is basically a battlefield map. However, in a big strategy game in which the lives and deaths of tens of millions of people are just numbers, Lin Po-shan uses zooming and collage to find out whether those doll-like models have ever looked out of the screen under the glory of war and historical decision-making.

(Lin Boshan, Empire) "I want to find people's expressions on their faces, find people's emotions-death, fear of death, want to prove the moral projection of NPC players, can have some of their own self. I always thought, if only I could wake them up."

Deng Jieyu, who studied graphic design and photography in the UK, tried another way to bridge virtual and reality.

Based on the "NPC" series of the Wild Dart 2, he printed out the game photography and then made these "photos" old. This process requires a variety of attempts: sometimes, Deng Jieyu will soak the paper and fabrics of different hardness and materials in coffee, then dry them according to the old needs, and then paste the photos; sometimes, he will also use the gravure printing process, first print the photography on the iron plate, and then apply ink and transfer it to the paper.

In the "Untitled" series, Deng Jieyu recycled many second-hand slides and collaged photos and slides printed on sulfuric acid paper to make these game photos look like old photos from a century ago.

(Deng Jieyu, "NPC" and "Untitled")

(second-hand slides collected by Deng Jieyu) Deng Jieyu first tried game photography in "radiation 4". At first, he also took screenshots directly in the game, but these stereotyped images made him feel too much like pictures on the Internet, a little boring. In the second creation, he used the CE modifier to unlock the limitation of the perspective in the second Shadow of the Wolf, bringing the "viewing way" of his creation in reality into the work, and found his own expression language.

(Deng Jieyu, "famous City") Lin Boshan is the founder of the domestic art society HAKUCHI. At first, HAKUCHI's intention was to serve as an "archive" of contemporary photography, introducing contemporary well-known or unknown photographers and works.

But with the continuous evolution of the community over the past four years, HAKUCHI now wants to spread, talk and experiment. With these thoughts, HAKUCHI has carried out more online and offline activities, and game photography is one of the most distinctive attempts of HAKUCHI.

This activity comes from Lin Boshan's two thoughts: do different players have different perspectives in the same "public space"? Does the virtual world bring new sights and stories? In the past few years, Lin Boshan, Deng Jieyu and many like-minded friends have tried a series of different themes of game photography from the perspective of art photography with strong curiosity.

And their works are also selected and included in HAKUCHI's "Game Photography Collection results display" collection.

Yang Aili, "Lovers" (from the game "Cyberpunk 2077", the third issue of the results show)

Ma Zixiang, "/ hud off" (from the game "Special Forces 2", fourth phase of the results show)

Wu Jingwen, "Artificial Dust artificial Twilight" (from the game "the Sims", the third issue of the results show)

Yan Xiangning, "Unreal" (from the second issue of the game "Assassin's Creed: origins"), the mainstream large-scale games are more or less heroic and romantic. No matter how difficult the process is, the protagonists always have a way to get a relatively happy ending, and many common game photography or screenshots of games are created around this emotion.

But outside the spotlight of the main plot, the game can express much more than that. The interaction of the game often goes beyond the intention of the design and tells more stories that only belong to the players. It's like in "my World", a long dark cave adventure is exhausting, and at the moment of returning to the ground, the sun fills the screen and background music plays. Many players will feel that there is something beyond the game itself at this moment, but it is difficult to describe it in any words.

And that's what HAKUCHI artists want to capture.

We talked with Lin Boshan and Deng Jieyu about their works. Lin Boshan joked that when he used Ancient Scroll 5: Skyline as a sightseeing walking simulator game, he captured a completely different side of the protagonist's journey. He lit up the whole forest with illumination, and all he saw was the bodies of one animal after another. Perhaps the protagonist who lived at that time would be calm about the immediate death, but it is difficult for players living in modern society in front of the screen not to be in awe and touch this cold world in the north.

(Lin Boshan, "Untitled") and what touches Deng Jieyu most is the NPC in the game, which is stiff and rigid because of the limitation of technology. No matter "radiation" or "Wolf", the NPC in the game has a wonderful sense of alienation. They play dialogue according to the plot in the game, but their stiff movements and expressions are out of touch with their world, reminding Deng Jieyu of himself with some social obstacles.

For Lin Boshan and Deng Jieyu, the core of their game photography creation is only one thing: to break through the existing perspective of the game designer, and to give the immediate picture a personal interpretation and reshaping. Whether they call their works photography or screenshots, there is no difference between them. As long as the works express their personal emotions and ideas with the help of game pictures, it is worthy of recognition.

The history of game photography is not short. As early as 2006, the New York gallery Postmasters exhibited portraits of Eva & Franco Matters in the game second Life.

Chinese artist Cao Fei also used second Life as a medium to create a virtual image called "China China Tracy" and completed her important works in her artistic career: "my Mirror" and "people's walled City" by photographing and recording game characters and props. At present, there are also new media artists like Lu Yang who explore the subtle intersection between games and reality by combining elements such as game design and virtual human.

Cao Fei, "my Mirror" (picture from thepaper.cn)

Lu Yang, "DOKU-Digital Alaya" screenshot (picture from luyang.asia) just as photography encountered many questions about artistic value and creative techniques at the beginning of its birth, game photographers are also facing a lot of questions about existence itself: what's the difference between this and random screenshots? Is it creative to take a picture of a model? The material in the game comes from the creation of other artists. Is this collage an art form?

Both Lin Boshan and Deng Jieyu have thought deeply about these issues.

"sometimes the process of game photography is like music sampling," Deng said. "some of the audience's doubts about our work are like the audience's attitude towards rap music in the early years." The widely used sampling (sampling) method of rap music is to directly use ready-made music materials, such as classic old songs, to break up and reorganize the "beat" as the rap background.

There is a lot of discussion about the commercial and moral aspects of this approach, and both sides are reasonable, but on the whole, today's society still tends to recognize this misappropriation of ready-made products (ready-made). Rap music sampling can be seen as music creation, programmers using ready-made code base can be seen as programming work, then the use of game material re-editing and creation, of course, can also be seen as a form of photography.

Photography in the real world is undoubtedly an action that requires a lot of physical labor. But photography in the game is not easy. Because the game itself is a well-designed product, jumping out of its framework requires more creativity and technical assistance. Use programming, modifiers to change the perspective, and even directly unpack and use game material to recreate.

"some types of photography, such as war photography and wildlife photography, are relatively far away for ordinary photographers, but (game photography) can more easily replicate and honor that tradition through games. Intentionally or unintentionally continue something." When Lin Boshan compared traditional photography with the game photography he received in the solicitation, he realized that people would inevitably take some biases in their view of game photography. " A lot of scenery in the real world is also good-looking, but it is relatively fixed, and many people actually shoot the same thing from the same angle. People can easily identify with architectural photographers and landscape photographers in real life, but they have more doubts about the creation of game photographers. "

(top: George Shiras III wildlife photography; bottom: Lin Boshan, "Untitled")

(top: Thomas Struth, "Church of the Holy Sepulchre, East Jerusalem"; bottom: Dong Fulin, "binary Landscape", from the game Battlefield 5)

(top: Luigi Ghirri, "Orbetello"; bottom: panda, "Journey to Wuzhishan", from the game "Stanley's Fables")

(top: Martin Parr, "The Louvre"; bottom: Jie Rui, "Jerry, Jerry", from the game "GTA5") HAKUCHI photographers, many creative techniques are very pioneering from the perspective of game photography, but from the perspective of photography art is not without precedent. As one of the most "subversive" members of the Dusseldorf school of photography, German photographer Thomas Ruff released a series of works called "Jpegs", which directly used ready-made news photos and enlarged them to the scale of pixels, giving an image a new meaning. Lin Boshan's Empire can be said to come down in a continuous line in terms of creative techniques.

(top: Wolfgang Tillmans, "Concorde"; middle: Lin Boshan, "Empire"; second: Thomas Ruff, "Jpegs") Deng Jieyu's recent work focuses on NPC in Cyberpunk 2077. During the long development process of the game, these characters have carefully created background stories, carefully designed clothes and costumes consistent with identity and personality, and a variety of hidden pieces of information to describe their lives.

Except for a few seconds of interaction with players, most of the time these NPC only exist quietly as the background board of the game. But when Deng Jieyu's camera was aimed at them, he seemed to capture countless stories waiting to be told.

(Deng Jieyu, "NPC") these works are easily reminiscent of the famous Magnum photographer Alec Soth. Alec Soth's photographic subjects are often filled with a sense of "real NPC". Love letters are one of his classic shooting themes, and people seem willing to share these extremely gentle and private personal memories with him.

"if there is a nice apartment here and I have a decent job, you are happy and feel that maybe there can be a (good) story between us, will you go home?"

(Alec Soth, "Love Letter: Would You Come Home?") these letters are like diaries, letters and photos scattered by NPC who have no way to speak in the game. A few fragments piece together an ordinary but unique life.

(top: Alec Soth, "Sleeping By The Mississippi"; bottom: Deng Jieyu, "Untitled") although game photography is controversial in one way or another, it is undeniable that game photography has become an indispensable part of games, and the fully functional photography mode has even become an important selling point for many games, and ordinary players are happy to share their experiences in games on social media in the form of photo screenshots.

(Meitu of the author and his friends opening up wasteland on the island.) HAKUCHI's game photography collection has been going on for the fourth year. The initial manuscript solicitation was just a simple discussion of virtual public space: how would different players look at the same landscape? But as the activity continues, people gradually find that this manuscript solicitation activity touches the most controversial part of game photography: the almost ambiguous distance between the game and reality, the empathy or antagonism between the player and the character, and through the controversial form of the game itself, try to question the boundaries of photography as an art form.

Although people often question the artistry of game photography, HAKUCHI creators have unexpectedly inherited the most fascinating form and will of photography.

In addition to the game, the discussion of game photography is gradually moving towards a more professional field. The photographer Gallery (The Photographers' Gallery) in London, England, has held a series of lectures and workshops on online spaces photography called Screen Walks since 2020, among which there are many pioneer discussions.

In addition to professional artists giving guidance on how to take screenshots cleverly, there are even artists who have created a NPC photographer Bot who roams through GTA5. Through programming, the Bot refused to participate in the tasks in the game, took out his mobile phone street shot when something happened, and never took up a weapon.

(screenshot from the online lecture "Screen Walk wit GTA V Photographer Bot") after a while, the voice of game photography that is not "real" and "limited in material selection" will become a weak echo from ancient times. Just like people once questioned whether photography itself was "real" or not. As early as 1974, Hiroji Sugimoto came to the New York Museum of Natural History to photograph the museum's microscopic models and published the photo album Diorama. These series of works are like game photography, drifting between real and virtual, elusive, but Hiroji Sugimoto believes: "when the virtual images are photographed by the camera, they become real images."

Because what can finally determine whether a work is "real" is not the criterion of physics, but whether he can be touched by the picture when the audience looks at the work, and finally see the human nature and thinking outside the picture that the author wants to present.

(Hiroshi Sugimoto, "Diorama") this article comes from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag). Author: Yi Yue Qing

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