From the series "England, The Game" by Richard Kolker
Inspired by video games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, London based photographer and digital artist Richard Kolker has moved away from more traditional forms of constructing photographic imagery, the camera, to something even more digital than the digital camera; Computer-generated imagery. Using industry standard 3d rendering software such as Maya, Kolker has produced several series of CGI based photographs that begin to bridge the gap between reality and non-reality, by using the tools of the video game to visualise the banality of real modern life. His series "England, the game" when viewed as thumbnails on his website, could at first be mistaken for a series of modern smart-phone snaps of daily life. Only when they are opened to view in full does it become clear they are constructed visualisations.
Kolker highlights the banality of modern daily life with his use of CGI, a medium so often used to bring to life bright and fantastical worlds and environments, to reproduce the everyday bland and beige scenes we are so used to. In an interview with Kolker by Time Magazine (Sun, 2020) he reflects "I wanted to create images that reflected a more mundane nature, as opposed to the more fascinating environments people were experiencing through the anonymity of an avatar". In doing so his images become odd and jarring, it's strange to see such normality portrayed in this way, the smooth visuals and aesthetics that are inherent to CGI imply something is wrong or off, that someone strange or mystical must be happening, and it simply isn't.
In her book "Why Art photography?" (2013) Lucy Scoutter explores the uncanny nature of Kolkers works and how it mirrors the real world, showing back to us the details we sometimes forget; "Simulated, synthesised photograph's, they hold the eye because they are forever not quite real" and even compares Kolker's work to Gurskey and Crewdson. It's amazing to me that yet again this work rears its head in my research through no fault of my own, Scoutter refers to Kolker's work as the "digital uncanny, simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar" mirroring the words of Sigmund Freud in his own essay on the uncanny. And I agree, its the same sense from Crewdsons work just that where Crewdson takes reality and makes it unfamiliar, Kolker takes Unrealiaty, unfamiliarity, and makes it familiar, all for the same effect.
In discussing this kind of work online myself, I have already come up against resistance against the idea that CG work can even be considered photography. And it seems this debate has been raging on for a while already now, with articles such as "CGI vs Photography - The Great image Debate" by Photodoto (Bradley, n.d.) and "How much of a threat is CGI to photographers?" (Baggs, 2019) published on F-Stoppers being just two such articles to tackle the debate, with the latter article seeming to yeild to the apparent inevitability. Scoutter writes of Kolkers work "Are these constructed images photographs at all? In many important regards, they are. The virtual camera follows the same rules as a real one: film size, aperture, shutter speed. the constructed scene may or may not follow the laws of physics and may or may not be naturalistic. But given the endless manipulations possible within regular analogue or digital photography, this version merely severs the last vestigial link to a world that may or may not itself be real" though even she admits "Some people will not want to accept this kind of image as photography" (Scoutter, 2013).
For me, photography as an art form is about using imagery in any form to communicate, and my interest in this medium now stems from my research, and emulative trials, of the work of James Casebere and Gregory Crewdson. Crewdson, who would build scenes from the ground up on soundstages, and Casebere who would construct scaled models inspired by real world architecture and photograph them in his studio, seem to pave the way for photographers to use CGI. For me, having created CGI images in the past as a matter of hobby, and having struggled to achieve the desired effect when emulating Casebere's model process, the move to CGI seems like the logical next step during the pandemic.
Soutter, L., 2013. Why Art Photography?. London: Routledge, p.107, 108, 109.
Kolker, R., 2020. England, The Game — Richard Kolker. [online] Richard Kolker. Available at: <https://www.richardkolker.com/england-the-game> [Accessed 27 July 2020].
Sun, F., 2020. Imaginary Universe: Richard Kolker's Computer Generated Images. [online] Time.com. Available at: <https://time.com/3792468/imaginary-universe-richard-kolkers-computer-generated-images/> [Accessed 27 July 2020].
Bradley, R., n.d. CGI Vs. Photography - The Great Image Debate - Photodoto. [online] Photodoto.com. Available at: <https://photodoto.com/cgi-vs-photography/> [Accessed 27 July 2020].
Baggs, R., 2019. How Much Of A Threat Is CGI To Photographers?. [online] Fstoppers. Available at: <https://fstoppers.com/originals/how-much-threat-cgi-photographers-354271> [Accessed 27 July 2020].