Project timeline

The 1980s and 1990s – First wonders

Like many young geeks in Western Europe, I experienced a rather classic and happy period of wonderment with video games. After school, homework, adventures with friends in the park or in the forest of Fontainebleau, music theory, violin, gymnastics or karate lessons, we were allowed to watch films, television or play video games. In arcades, on NES and Super Nintendo, to begin with. Then came my cousin’s Amiga and our parents’ first PC, on which I experienced my first frights in a virtual world in Alone in The Dark; my first immersion in a cyberpunk universe in Syndicate; and my first dive into a world of poetic digital adventure in Little Big Adventure. Too demanding on hardware resources, I quickly abandoned the PC for the PlayStation 1, then the Nintendo 64.

1992: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – Enjoying observing

My contemplative relationship with video games dates back to that early period of wonder, when I watched my older brother play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, created by Shigeru Miyamoto for the Super Nintendo in 1992. My brother and I already shared a passion for cycling adventures, films and music; the desire for exploration, art and fiction were part of our lives. But seeing him embody the hero of an interactive epic on screen was something new. Watching him play was a new reason to spend time with my brother, and a new way of being a spectator. That’s when I began to appreciate video games for what they are: interactive fiction, capable of transporting us into new imaginary worlds, together and simultaneously.

1992: Alone in the Dark – Facing your fears

It was while playing Infogrames’ Alone in the Dark that I experienced my very first scares in a virtual world. Considered the first 3D survival horror game, it is regarded as one of the inspirations for the Resident Evil series. Despite the monochrome screen of our first PC and a sound card that only emitted metallic sounds, I enthusiastically immersed myself in this nightmarish universe. I rediscovered the pleasure of playing at scaring myself. The pleasure of interacting with this mysterious and horrific world was nothing like the passive pleasure I got from watching horror films with my brother and his friends. That’s when I understood the impact of interactivity: in video games, being an actor rather than a mere spectator makes fiction more engaging, more frightening, and therefore more complex to create and enjoy.

1993: Syndicate – Dealing with ugliness and violence

The cyberpunk universe of Syndicate, created by Bullfrog, was my very first experience of a semi-open world game. It was a formative experience that shaped me into the gamer I am today. I was too young to be captivated by the storylines, and I wasn’t really interested in the missions. They mainly consisted of killing and destruction, set against a backdrop of power struggles between states and technology corporations. It was the story’s setting that really caught my attention: a futuristic, cold, realistic and relatively ugly urban world. An ugliness typical of the large housing estates and utilitarian dormitory towns built in Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the ugliness of this environment, I took real pleasure in walking the streets, observing the scenery, the vehicles, the routines of the NPCs, contemplating with admiration this artificially recreated urban life. This curiosity was obviously rooted in my perception of the real world, acquired in my natural environment.

1993: Syndicate – Curiosity and resilience

Despite its ugliness and violence, the world of Syndicate was where I first experienced contemplative pleasure in a digital world. I was already familiar with this feeling in nature, books, music and cinema; here I discovered a new space for contemplation, a new way of enjoying existence. I was aware that I was looking at a simple collection of cleverly arranged pixels, and yet I was really there, my imagination and curiosity awakened. It is these fundamental, formative first sensations that allow me today to explore the territories of cyberspace with genuine pleasure.

1994: Little Big Adventure – Frustration and imagination

The game Little Big Adventure also had a profound impact on me, even though I never actually played it. Our PC at the time didn’t have the SVGA colour screen needed to run it. I could only dream about it secretly, reading video game magazines. That didn’t stop me from having an indelible memory of it, quite the contrary. This off-screen realm of the inaccessible, the promises of the narrative and the visual excerpts forced me to project my imagination. Without realising it at the time, I was discovering the artistic forces at work in video games, the same forces found in all works of the mind: invented worlds capable of transporting you, inside or outside yourself, through the power of imagination alone.

1998: Unreal – Virtual paradises

In 1998, as part of my studies, I re-equipped myself with a PC and played Unreal, developed by Epic Games. That’s when I discovered what ‘real’ real-time 3D computer graphics were all about. Mesmerised, I would sometimes stop playing just to better appreciate the graphics. I moved closer to the screen and contemplated the objects and landscapes, as if I were rediscovering the shapes of the world. At that time, geeks like me were faced with a new world: high-definition 3D was no longer just a promise but a reality, and we were all going to dive into an increasingly figurative representation of cyberspace, with no turning back. The most vulnerable would become addicted; those with no other escape routes or places to wander would be at the mercy of the pleasures of these mirage worlds, veritable virtual paradises. The challenge in those early years was therefore to strike the right balance between reality and daydreaming. To know how to enjoy exploring these new worlds with the energy of pioneers, while keeping both feet firmly planted in the real world, in order to live and build one’s life IRL.

1998: Half-Life – Video games and cinema

My second aesthetic shock in a 3D virtual world. Also in 1998, I discovered Half-Life, a new kind of video game, based on immersive storytelling, borrowing codes from cinema, featuring a revolutionary physics engine, and detailed 3D graphics. The willingness of taking screenshots was immediate. I took a little bit of everything : place, objects, interactions, scripted sequences. A basic shooting method, a rendering a bit raw, but the big picture of Virtual Tourism was born : I found a simple method to keep memory of my virtual experiences. See the album Virtual Tourism in New-Mexico.

2001 – 2004: Max Payne 1 & 2 – Rediscovering gravity

A game brimming with pyrotechnic details that fully exploits the potential of ragdoll physics. As a fan of John Woo films since my teenage years, I enjoy playing and replaying totally improbable action scenes. Shortly before ‘Let’s Play’ videos appeared on YouTube, I used to capture slow-motion action sequences with my digital camcorder, capturing the effect of lights and objects when hit by bullets. It was exhilarating. I never shared these images on the internet, but the videos are still on the camcorder tapes, somewhere at my parents’ house.

2008: Fallout 3 – Art and technology

My third aesthetic shock in a virtual world, my first real experience of an open-world RPG, and my very first video game photographs. Wide landscapes, variable atmospheric effects. A so beautiful universe – perfect mix between art and technology, I had to take the landscapes in pictures, but it was impossible to take a screenshot here (on Xbox 360), so I took spontaneously pictures with an actual digital camera. The shooting method was transforming the picture surface, with a peculiar and paradoxical effect : the game looked more realistic, the trip memory much more “real”. See the album Virtual Tourism in Washington.

2010: Just Cause 2 – Horizontal and vertical exploration

The bigger map never created for 3D off-line open-world game; huge level design (exploration-oriented) on horizontal and vertical plan; jubilant physical engine sandbox like, virtuoso geographic and atmospheric effects. To sum up : the dream game to practice video games photography landscape-oriented. See the album Virtual Tourism in Island of Panau.

2011: Erwan Cario – The power of art critic

In September 2011, I discovered an article by Erwan Cario (a critic whom I have been reading since my first attempts at writing about video games), related to Iain Andrews‘s work. Before that, the concept of video games photography was not clear in my mind, and publishing my own video games pictures was not a goal. I was just shooting pictures, saving them somewhere on my hard disk, like any other archives, that was enough to keep memories of my virtual trip. To be honest, it was even an occupation a bit “bizarre”, maybe too geeky and hard to explain. Anyway, an art critic had been changing my vision, outside the box, simplified.

2011: Skyrim – At the edge of reality

I was publishing already some pictures taken during my real travel about architecture, design, location scouting; from now, within the same spirit, I could publish pictures from my virtual travel. My first published album was the virtual tour in the amazing Skyrim, certainly the bigger offline open-world game and the hugest interactive scenario I never played at this time. See the album Virtual Tourism in Province of Skyrim.

2016: Just Cause 3 – Action movie generator

In 2016, with Just Cause 3 by Avalanche Studios, I rediscovered the pleasures of contemplating a simulated world. It was the physics engine developed by the Swedish studio that caught my attention. The programme was so satisfying that I captured slow-motion sequences of explosions. The software allows for the destruction of large structures, such as bridges – a rare technical feat at the time, especially in such a vast universe. In my eyes, this game became the most beautiful digital representation of a type of game that is universal among many children: playing with toy cars. Watch the video Virtual Tourism in Medici Archipelago.

2015 – 2020: In-game photography is mainstream

The games released in the late 2010s were numerous and rich in worlds to explore. Most open-world games now offer a built-in photography mode, catering to fans of the new popular art form that video game photography has become, now officially called In-game photography or Virtual photography.

URBEX – Virtual urban exploration

After deserting virtual worlds for a few years – already busy exploring new territories IRL, I finally came back to the limbos for a proper urban exploration in the Boston of Fallout 4; then after in Wasteland’s desert of Mad Max, the San Francisco of Watch Dog 2, the city of Columbia in Bioshock Infinite, in the miraculous Middle Ages recreated by Polish studio CD Projekt, The Witcher 3; as well as in its very ambitious (perhaps overly) Cyberpunk 2077 – a virtual world and a simulation that did not leave me indifferent.

Back to limbos – Rediscovering the past, imagining the future

I also spent a long time wandering through ancient Egypt of Assassin’s Creed Origins and its visionary “Discovery Tour” DLC; representing a Ubisoft’s major contribution to the creation of interactive documentary experiences and in the development of new methods for knowledge acquisition. I loved exploring the mysterious universe of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, a true ode to travel and the finest contemporary representative of adventure entertainment. I then discovered with great interest the dark and visionary universes of Detroit: Become Human, by French studio Quantic Dream, and Metro Exodus, by the Ukrainian studio A4Games.

2020: The Soulignac Brothers – Reconnecting despite restrictions

In December 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and severe travel restrictions, my brother and I were living 10,000 km apart. He was in Paris, while I was in Saigon (Vietnam). We began to wonder how we might see each other for the holidays despite these constraints. In previous years, I would usually travel physically for the holidays, by plane, thereby generating an excessive and unreasonable amount of carbon emissions. We could also have chosen to connect through voice or video calls. But since we both shared a passion for video games and new technologies, and had previously collaborated on the GTA 4 episode of the Virtual Tourism series (Los Angeles vs Los Santos), we simply decided to meet up in our favorite video game: Red Dead Redemption 2.

2025 – Exploring new territories in cyberspace

Until then, the Virtual Tourism Project, dedicated to the contemplative way of gaming, had been a very solitary project; in 2020, it became a family matter, a collaborative project between brothers sharing the same passion. The objective was simple: to reunite despite the mobility restrictions, to talk, to have fun, and to try to preserve a tangible memory of that moment. This simple idea gradually evolved into a video project, in the spirit of “Machinima,” which can now naturally be found on our YouTube channel.

Emerging rituals – The real potential of video games

In this modest experiment, we also aim to poetically document how new rituals emerge in virtual worlds, whether or not they respond to real world changes. Presented as a series of logbooks, this project is always evolving, freely written, shaped by the shifting boundaries of cyberspace and ongoing discussions about the metaverse’s possibilities. Learn more about the collective The Soulignac Brothers and discover all our travel.