October 1, 2022
architecture gaming staging the ordinary sunset strip

In dialogue with the Eclipse Blvd

Dont Let Reality Interfer with your Alternate Reality

by Markus Oberndorfer

Markus Oberndorfer about his photographic journey through Vinewood West during times of the pandemic.

The Eclipse Boulevard1 is Rockstars’ interpretation of the Sunset Strip in Los Santos. It is situated in Vinewood West and is known for its landmark architecture, venues and billboard landscape; in the game Grand Theft Auto V, as well as in real life. I started playing GTA V in succession to shooting my 360 degree videos of the Sunset Strip in 2016 to look for parallels between the gaming environment and the videos. Both medial representations of the place are based on realtime interaction and decision paths within self-contained environments and imagery. Apart from comparing their experiental values, I examined topographical aspects arising from their juxtaposition. For example which of the Strips’ characteristic spots and buildings made it into the compressed version of Los Santos and how Rockstar translated them and the Strips’ billboards into the game.

Following the concept of REVISITED, I walked and drove up and down the Eclipse Boulevard with my Avatar during different online sessions and times of day and recorded myself doing so. The results show either North, or South Side of the boulevard out of first person-perspective2 and while walking East or West. Once again following in the footsteps of Ed Ruscha, whose famous medial representation ‘Every Building On The Sunset Strip’ from 1966, acts as point of reference for REVISITED and its related subprojects.3 To highlight some of the landmarks and billboards, whose 2016 real life pendants can be discovered in the 360 degree environments, I walked across the Eclipse Boulevard and took pictures with GTA Vs in-built Snapmatic camera. Similar to how I would do it in real life.

In the game the buildings, venues, shops and billboards carry modified, but contextually corresponding names. The infamous Whisky A Go Go is called Tequi-La-La, The Hustler, The Lust Resort, Terners Liquor, Ellens Liquor, The Standard Hotel, The Generic, and so on. One billboard advertising a perfume spells ‘Le Chien: Smell Like a Bitch’, another one for a film ‘Die Already 4’.

Apart from this video walk through, that shows the process of me taking in-game photographs while strolling around, a slideshow with the Snapmatic pictures4 can be viewed on my Rockstar Social Club page including a map with location information, that shows where on the Eclipse Blvd the pictures have been taken, and when. Playing GTA and embarking on a journey that scrutinizes its surrounding based on the concepts of REVISITED, has been the closest to continuing my work on site during the pandemic.

The in-game performances I conducted in open online sessions over several years – during which I interacted with Los Santos locals (NPCs) who commented on my behavior as well as other players interfering – resulted in the creation of video-works, strip panoramas and in-game photographs.

GTA V (Grand Theft Auto V) is an open world computer game by Rockstar Games. It is one of the most expensive games ever made. Extensively marketed and widely anticipated, it became the fastest- selling entertainment product in history.

This essay was written for “REVISITED” and as part of a booklet accompanying my solo exhibition “Destined To Return” at Bildraum Bodensee. Published in German & English.

Notes:

Footnotes

  1. Fig.18_ The Eclipse Blvd, Destined To Return, p.10. ↩

  2. Cf. John Berger: ‘Perspective makes the eye the center of the visible world, but the human eye can only be at one place at a time. It takes its visible world with it as it walks.’ (Ways of Seeing, Part 1, 1’40”) ↩

  3. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, In Dialogue with Sunset Strip, Destined To Return, p.5. ↩

  4. Rockstar hosts its own in-game photo contests at irregular intervals. https://gta.fandom.com/en/wiki/Snapmatic ↩