This past week the Cuban photographer Nelson Ramírez de
Arellano gave a talk at Lawrence University. I attended this talk.
While admittedly knowing nothing about Ramírez de Arellano
beforehand, I found his talk on the history of Cuban photography as well as his
own personal development fascinating. However, there was one particular part
that sticks out to me now.
Ramírez de Arellano briefly mentioned the Cuban photographer,
Rewell Altunaga. Though known for a wide body of work (something I know now
after researching him) he was brought up in the context of work that he had
done based on pictures taken by Igor Kostin. Kostin, as Russian phographer, is
best known as being one of the 5 photographers in the world to have taken
pictures of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26th 1986 (source: his Wikipedia page).
This is a nice photo essay by the Guardian of some of his pictures he took in the immediate
aftermath of the explosion:
According to Ramírez de Arellano, though I couldn’t find
anywhere online that was able to coorberate this claim, Kostin’s images were
later used(sold?) to a video game developer who based their digital recreation
of Chernobyl off of Kostin’s images. Though Ramírez de Arellano didn’t say
which specific developer, I suspect that he was referring to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
game franchise, probably the most high profile game franchise that takes place
in Chernobyl.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first person survival shooter, here's a little bit of what it looks like:
Now coming back to Altunaga, according to Ramírez de
Arellano, fascinated with the idea that the 3D space in the video game was
based on the photographs by Kostin, he decided to try to recreate the original
photographs inside of the game. This is dope. I think this is really really
cool.
I tried my best to hunt down Altunaga’s photographs, however
the best I could do was find this one Diptych he has up on a website dedicated
to hosting the portfolios of Cuban artists. Here they are:
I'm pretty sure the black and white filter was added in post.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to track down the original Igor Kostin photographs these are apparently based on. I would love to be able to see them side by side. However, I was able to track down a handful of other resources about Altunaga.
Apparently he's still very active, making lots of photography and video projects in video games. Here is one of his more recent projects:
"Shot with Battlefield 4, this work is an immersive experience that throws the viewer in the middle of the ocean. It is dedicated to all the desperate men and women who died in their attempts to reach the promised land." -Rewell Altunaga (source: GAME VIDEO/ART)
To provide you with a little bit of context, this is a trailer for Battlefield 4, at the time one of the biggest budget military shooters out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okqZyq8LgCg
It is a game where you shoot and kill hundreds of people.
What is so powerful to me about Altunaga's work is its transformative power. The lens which he looks at Battlefield 4 through is much different than the ultra-violent military machoism that the setting and tone of the game suggests. He's able to create such a quiet, somber, personal piece of photography, inside of a blockbuster bombastic game. I find it pretty powerful.
It's also no where near the only time he's done it. This is a pretty fantastic - and long - interview with him: http://www.gamescenes.org/2013/07/rewellaltunagacubangameart.html
The interview covers work he's done in Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, Mario. Kane and Lynch 2, Arma II, and many other games.
Photography in games is something that I've thought about for a while now, occasionally framing and taking screenshots in the games I play. However, Altunaga's work has definitely re-inspired and reinterpreted this pursuit of mine. One of my favorite parts of his work is what he brings to the games. Before, when taking screenshots, I always felt limited in terms of what the world of the game offers. But the way he contextualizes the screenshots he took in Battlefield 4 made me realize that the art of video game photography deals just as much with what the photographer brings to the picture, than solely what the game has to offer visually.
As I finish writing this blog post I'm reminded that I have a folder on my laptop full of various random screenshots of games I occasionally take while playing. As far as I remember, unlike Altunaga's work, none of these had much intentionality at the time they were taken. But I thought I'd share a couple of them here.
Two of these are games I made, one of them is online: Vermont. The rest are from various games makers. If I recall correctly, one is part of Conor Sherlock's Walking-Simulator a Month Club, and the other is by Kitty Horrorshow (both excellent, excellent, developers).
That's all for this week.
Maybe next week I'll have some more screenshots to share.
Who knows.
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