Ryohei Takahashi (高橋遼平), Grand Theft Auto V’s Botany, 2023

In Grand Theft Auto V’s Botany, Ryohei Takahashi screenshots each of the in-game plants and classifies them through a scientific perspective. The form of the project follows the tradition of photographic books documenting flora, which dates back to 1842’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions by British botanist and photographer Anna Atkins. Yet Takahashi is interested in the digital conditions of game nature and the algorithmic properties of plants and trees in GTA V, rather than the link to their counterpart in the physical world.

Studying at the Information Design Department of Tama Art University in Japan under the mentorship of artist Akihiko Taniguchi, Takahashi became interested in the difference between physical reality and the game world. Drawing inspiration from approaches like Wajiro Kon’s 'modernology' (Kōgen-gaku) and the activities of the ROJO Society by Akasegawa Genpei – which paved the way to the study of contemporary lifestyles, customs and material cultures in Japan – the artist approaches the game world as an object of study to be be investigated through its affordances and properties. Focusing on the digital flora, he starts cataloguing the plants in the game following the same scientific attitude that distinguishes The Video Game Soda Machine Project – a series of more than 500 screenshots of soda machines in video games collected by Jess Morrissette.

Like some kind of software botanist, he categorises the game flora by family species such as texture, surfaces, meshes and composites – distinguishing between 2D and 3D plants, and their role in the game. The artist carries on his categorisation not only through the act of looking, but interacting with the flora through the affordances of the game mechanics: can the plants be stepped on, hit or shot through a gun?

Through a precise and scientific analysis and categorisation, Takahashi compiles a comprehensive list of assets that reveal the properties and functions of digital nature in GTA V. The game plants exist with two particular purposes: 'for swaying' and 'for hiding.' The movement of their leaves creates the sense of the wind and the passing of time, increasing immersivity in an environment that would otherwise be extremely static. Their placement between walls and the ground, on the other hand, is used for hiding straight lines and the edges where objects meet, which would expose the construction of the virtual world.

While these assets do not grow or reproduce like the flora out- side of the screen, the plants from GTA V could be seen as breeding: they might appear in other digital worlds, across other games developed by Rockstar Games, and on each GTA V unit sold. With Grand Theft Auto V’s Botany, Takahashi ultimately shows how game plants have adapted and evolved in specific ways, and how the study of game nature can go beyond plants as aesthetic elements, revealing technical properties and constraints that connect them with a larger algorithmic world.