Drew Nikonowicz’s This World and Others Like It investigates the role of the 21st-century explorer by combining computer modeling with analogue photographic processes. Drawing on the visual language of 19th-century survey images, Nikonowicz questions their relationship with current methods of record making. Thousands of explorable realities exist through rover and probe imagery, virtual role-playing, and video game software. Within the contemporary wilderness, robots have replaced photographers as mediators, producing images completely dislocated from human experience. This suggests that the sublime landscape is now only accessible through the boundaries of technology.

Published by Fw:Books in 2019 and co-published with Yoffy Press, the book is a paperback of 98 pages measuring 22 x 29.3 cm, with a gatefold and two inserts. It was designed by Hans Gremmen, with text by Paula Kupfer. The publisher records several distinctions: a shortlist placement at the Arles Book Awards 2019, a Special Juror’s Mention at the Aperture Paris Photobook Award 2019, and Best of 2019 selections by Jeffrey Ladd, Awoiska van der Molen, Photobookstore, and Lensculture.

For collectors, the book’s interest lies in its argument and its construction as a designed object. Nikonowicz treats the rover’s camera, the video game’s renderer, and the 19th-century survey plate as related instruments that translate land into data and data back into image. The book examines photography’s own procedures, particularly the entwining of the analogue and the computational, rather than presenting a portfolio of any single place. Those drawn to work that questions how a place becomes visible through technology will find a considered and unusually specific contribution.