Getting Started

The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos is, among other things, an attempt to introduce a video game as a space for artistic intervention, and an invitation to use its mechanics, its code and its environment as a creative tool itself. The game can be played, documented and captured through a form of artistic play that differs from normative gameplay and does not focus on advancing and winning but rather engages with the game object critically. Furthermore, the game software can also be manipulated, modified and used as an apparatus to create new images and interactions. The goal of this guide is to combine a curatorial approach that leads the viewer to discover the artworks made in GTA V with a hands-on approach that teaches the player the tools for possible artistic interventions in this space.

Games are often seen as producing specific cultures and shaping identities through forms of play that follow the intentions of the developer. Here we understand games as objects to be reclaimed and tools to be deconstructed and rebuilt, both conceptually and literally. Consequently, players are not just passive actors that push buttons in the sequence that they are taught by the machine and its software, but open up the black box of the game and become critical thinkers and makers that actively play with the game, or even against it.

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos can be employed as a resource to accompany workshops for students and artists approaching computer games and interested in learning how to engage with them. Each manual introduces different techniques and strategies to capture images within Grand Theft Auto V, connected to the artworks featured in the Guide and locations explored in each tour. The manuals are thought to be experienced in order, as the lessons at times rely on knowledge that is built on top of previous lessons. Each tutorial is accompanied by content replication assignments, in which the readers are invited to use the skills learnt on the manuals to recreate projects presented in the artworks section. Manuals are intended for anyone who might be playing GTA V for the first time in their life and do not assume any previous experience, although some basic idea of programming is helpful when dealing with scripting and modding the game.

In order to to follow the guide, you will need the following:

• A PC. Consoles work until modding and scripting are introduced. Recent Mac computers running Apple Silicon could run the game using Crossover but, similarly to consoles cannot be used for coding custom mods.

• The Steam application with an account (free).

• A copy of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V is 100+ GB so it will take a few hours to download depending on your internet connection). The game is often on sale for under 20 USD on the Steam Store.

• Once you have purchased and downloaded your copy of the game via Steam, go to your Steam Library and click Play. The first time you play the game, you will be asked to sign in to Rockstar Launcher or sign up with a new account. Make sure to save your email and password combination somewhere. If you forget the email account associated with your copy of the game you will not be able to retrieve it.