Game Art: COLL.EO's "Postcards from Italy" (2016)

Postcards from Italy is a new project by Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti aka COLL.EO. It looks like this:

Postcards from Italy consists of a set of framed photographs of postcards racks found within the virtual world of Forza Horizon 2 (Microsoft, 2014) . Each photograph measures 4 by 6 inches and it's printed on archival photo paper. This project pays homage to American photographer Stephen Shore.

In 1972, Shore produced ten postcards in Amarillo Texas based on a series of photographs that he took of dull, uninteresting places. He then proceeded to print 56,000 copies of the postcards and tried to sell them in bookshops. After failing to do so, he took a different approach, slipping them into postcards racks as he travelled across the US in the next twelve months, inserting his works into an existing distribution system. His postcards thus began a new journey. Here are two examples:

In 2016, COLL.EO produced several postcards of postcard racks based on a series of photographs that they took within the virtual world of Forza Horizon 2, a racing game published by an American corporation, Microsoft. Forza Horizon 2 is set in a fictional, idealized version of what Americans usually call “postcard Italy”. COLL.EO then proceeded to print several hundreds and started slipping them into postcards racks disseminated in shops around Northern Italy, inserting their work into an existing distribution system. They also sent the postcards to a selected number of friends, curators, and critics. The postcards thus began a new journey, in multiple, colliding realities.