Kim Laughton, Los_santos.obj, 2014

Los_santos.obj is a series of images rendered from the 3D world of Grand Theft Auto V. 3D artist and graphic designer Kim Laughton initially came across a file of the game model that was ripped by players and uploaded to an online forum. The entire GTA V map was extracted from the game and shared among players to collectively investigate Easter eggs and hidden files left by developers. After opening the file in a 3D modelling software, the artist explored the empty city navigating the virtual map. The architecture, devoid of image textures and of its inhabitants, is rendered even more eerie by Laughton’s subtle interventions, who added fog and a glowing distant sun.

The resulting images sit somewhere between an atmospheric illustration of the city and a technical representation of the 3D world. Ripped from its original context and extracted from its game software, Los Santos is transformed from the experience inside the game world into a deserted urban landscape.

On one hand the artist turns the parodic over the top version of Los Angeles into a melancholic and desolate site, starkly contrasting Rockstar Games’ portrayal. Los Santos is depicted as a contemporary wasteland, a victim of industrial decline and economic downturn, shrouded in a grey sky and toxic fumes of environmental collapse. On the other hand, the flatness of the grey virtual world reveals the true properties of simulation, breaking the illusion of the textured 3D world and showing the construction of algorithmic spaces.

Paradoxically, Laughton breaks the photorealistic illusion of the game – removing the textures and replacing them with shades of grey – while acting with a photographic mindset. Exploring the game world through a computational camera apparatus, the artist documents the virtual city as a kind of landscape photographer.

Furthermore, the process behind Los_santos.obj reveals an extended network of actors that are connected to the game image with different interests and roles: from the original developers of the game world to the players coming together to extract the 3D map looking for clues to the artistic interventions and image renderings of Laughton, Los_santos.obj contains some of the complex forces at play within the game object.

Finally, unlike many artists who worked with GTA V, Laughton’s approach of image-making does not involve screenshotting or photographing the game screen, but rather navigating, manipulating and rendering a 3D files, challenging the traditional understanding of the photographic medium and the role of the photographer in relation to the game world. This approach to digital and networked images is a hallmark of the artist’s practice, seamlessly blending his extensive work with CGI and photorealistic 3D environments across both commercial and artistic realms. His work frequently intertwines irony with poetry, appropriating, augmenting, and reimagining familiar imagery while delving into internet aesthetics and consumer culture.

More by Kim Laughton: laughton.kim