Los Santos als Sehnsuchtsraum. Ästhetische Erfahrung, In-Game-Fotografie und langsames Spielen in Grand The! Auto V

Abstract

The article examines Grand Theft Auto V not primarily as a phenomenon of violence, satire, or toxicity, but as a space of aesthetic experience. It begins with the observation that, despite its problematic and frequently discussed aspects, GTA V also enables positive, calm, and curiously enduring experiences: long drives through Los Santos, listening to the radio stations, observing changing light conditions, wandering aimlessly, and photographing street scenes, landscapes, or small details. The text asks how these forms of slow and aesthetic gameplay can be conceptualized theoretically and what role in-game photography plays within them. To this end, approaches from Game Studies, game aesthetics, gameworld tourism, spatial theory, virtual photography, and slow game time are combined with a close-playing-oriented analysis of GTA V. The article argues that Los Santos is not merely a backdrop for crime and escalation, but an inhabitable space of longing: a digital place that becomes lived space only through movement, routines, visual practices, and affective attachment. In-game photography and slow gameplay thus emerge not as marginal fan practices, but as forms of cultural appropriation that reveal GTA V as a complex, contradictory, and aesthetically effective media object.