ART-PRESENTATION: John Gerrard-Solar Reserve
The Irish artist John Gerrard is best known for his sculptures and installations, which typically take the form of digital simulations, displayed using real-time computer graphics. Gerrard’s works concern themselves with the nature of contemporary power by exemplifying the mass structures and vast networks of energy which materialised during the 20th Century.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: LACMA Archive
John Gerrard presents his monumental installation “Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada)” (2014) for first time in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). This monumental digital simulation recreates a solar thermal power plant in Nevada and the surrounding desert on a frameless LED wall. At the center of this virtual world is a tower encircled by 10,000 mirrors that adjust their positions in real time according to the location of the sun, and reflect light on the tower to generate electricity. Gerrard’s works concern themselves with the nature of contemporary power by exemplifying the mass structures and vast networks of energy which materialised during the 20th Century. Technology is a key vehicle for producing his work, but it is not only a vehicle. Through advanced technology, Gerrard manages to invoke the history of landscape painting and photography by positioning his oeuvre somewhere between fiction and documentary. He invents situations and new places through image that are often foreign to the viewer, and asks us to assimilate this vast agglomeration of information. Many works feature geographically isolated industrial facilities – such as solar-power stations, factories, and oil rigs – that remain a hidden part of the global production network. Although these facilities appear to be removed from life in the cities, their existence helps fabricate the luxuries of contemporary life. Gerrard evoked this irony through the juxtaposition of his installation “Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada)”, installed on the plaza of New York’s Lincoln Center in October 2014. Gerrard’s giant LED screen used video-game software to give the beholder a life-like view of a solar-power installation in Nevada, presented in a simulation of live video. Over the course of a 365-day year, the work simulates the actual movements of the sun, moon, and stars across the sky, as they would appear at the Nevada site, with the thousands of solar-panels adjusting their positions in real time according to the position of the sun. The artist, a team of modellers, and programmers, meticulously constructed this virtual world using sophisticated simulation engines. Gerrard’s method of production involves taking tens of thousands of digital photographs and then recreating a scene with them by implementing the same technology used for video games. The result is seemingly realistic but artificial in actuality. The digital computer and its indiscriminate capacity to model any form whatsoever is the crucial component for creating a hyper-realistic rendering of subjects. Such virtual technology has become standard in the videogames industry, which evolved from US military simulation exercises; yet it has rarely crossed over into the visual arts. Production Credits for “Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada)” 2014: Producer: Werner Poetzelberger; Programmer: Helmut Bressler; Modeler (terrain and landscape): Adam Donovan; Modeler (facility and heliostat): Markus Bliem; Project Photographer (U.S.): Travis Hall; Installation Development/Technical Design: Jakob Illera/Inseq Design; Game Engine: Unigine
Info: Curators: Jennifer King and Meghan Doherty, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, Duration: 12/7-3/9/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Tue & Thu 11:00-17:00, Fri 11:00-20:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-19:00, www.lacma.org
