Fernando Pereira Gomes, Procedural Generation, 2013

Fernando Pereira Gomes’s Procedural Generation (2013) stands as a pioneering intersection of traditional street photography and the landscapes of GTA V. Captured within the virtual streets of Los Santos using the in-game camera on a PlayStation 4, Gomes’ work transcends the boundaries of the simulation, treating the virtual environment as a tangible, real space. A Brazilian-born artist and photographer now based in Colorado, Gomes graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2015.

Procedural Generation focuses on the existential condition of NPCs within GTA V. Despite being mere lines of code, these characters are portrayed as if they possess an awareness of their existence, dependent on the photographer’s gaze. This approach underscores the transient nature of their existence, drawing parallels to human experiences of alienation and loneliness. For instance, one image captures a lone female character standing under a streetlamp next to a palm tree at night, with illuminated windows of a tall building in the background. This scene, rich in urban isolation, emphasises the stark solitude of the character within a highly detailed yet artificial environment. Another image captures a solitary figure walking past a dimly lit storefront at night. The man is dressed casually in a white t-shirt, dark pants, and a cap, creating a silhouette against the illuminated windows of the store. Inside the store, we see a sparsely furnished interior with muted colours, including a red square on the wall that adds a splash of colour to the otherwise subdued setting. The light from the storefront casts reflections on the wet pavement, hinting at a recent rain. The overall mood of the photograph is one of quiet solitude and urban isolation, emphasising the contrast between the warm, inviting light of the interior and the cold, empty street outside. The composition, with its strong horizontal and vertical lines, creates a structured and somewhat sterile environment, highlighting the disconnect between the individual and the surrounding cityscape.

The title Procedural Generation refers to the algorithmic techniques used in game development to automatically create game content. This method generates diverse and dynamic elements within the game world, such as landscapes, buildings, weather patterns, and NPC behaviours, reducing the need for extensive manual design work. In GTA V, procedural generation is used extensively to create lifelike and varied interactions, dynamic weather conditions, and bustling urban environments. For Gomes, this mechanism, which causes characters to vanish when not in view, serves as a metaphor for the transient nature of existence, highlighting themes of presence and absence, central to existential philosophy. Gomes’ artistic process involved using the in-game camera to capture scenes within GTA V, which were then uploaded to the Rockstar servers and downloaded to his computer. Initially, he adhered strictly to in-game photography, but later switched to photographing the screen with his camera due to technical limitations. This shift, however, led him to lose interest as the process no longer felt like true in-game photography. Gomes’ exploration into the procedural generation mechanism within GTA V led him to profound philosophical inquiries about the nature of reality. The concept that game worlds save memory and run more efficiently by generating only what is within the player’s view became a metaphor for the limits of human perception. This idea propelled Gomes into the «real» streets with his camera, aiming to create images that mirrored the virtual streets of Los Santos. This exploration resulted in his other series New World Observatory (2014) and later evolved into Look Forward to See (2014-2021), where he added video game elements to real photographs to blur the line between reality and simulation.

As Gomes himself admits, Procedural Generation was a life-changing project, not due to its viral success, but because of the profound inner transformation it sparked. The project began as an eager 20-year-old’s midnight purchase of GTA V and evolved into a critical exploration of self and reality. In many ways, his own experience mirrors the trajectory of in-game photography as a form of philosophical inquiry.