Gameplay Journal Entry #4

Game Modification: Aesthetics and Mechanics

Colors Fade (2020) is a music video by Olavo Ekman, that is filmed entirely in-game, Grand Theft Auto: V with various visual mods to create its story. The story shows three characters driving through different locations within the game world that is littered with sci-fi references and influences. The song is very mellow, tech, and synth so the audio matches up very well with the dystopian visuals and mundane act of just driving around. Galloway’s concept of counter-gaming is used to create the music video. Ekman uses “mods of game technologies (whether at the visual level or the physics level), not mods of actual gameplay” (108). GTA V and the mods were used to tell a story and not to highlight any specific gameplay mode or feature. They were only used to help convey his ideas of technology dependencies and resistance to it.

The artist added various sci-fi models into the game world of GTA V. I do not believe that they artist was trying to critique mainstream video games with the mods. They were merely used to create the visuals he needed to fully visualize his vision of a dystopian future. GTA V has many beautiful environments that can dramatically change in tone simply based on what time of day it is in game. He takes advantage of this and creates a bleak, eerie, but beautiful world where technology has overcome nature. The only way to experience the beauty that nature once was, is through VR headsets outside of convenient stores.

OLAVO EKMAN’S COLORS FADE (2020)

Sources:

“Chapter 5: Countergaming.” Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, by Alexander R. Galloway, University of Minnesota Press, 2010.