John Gerrard: Farm, Thomas Dane

Prepare to be transported to another world by John Gerrard’s hyperreal landscapes at Thomas Dane Gallery, London.
John Gerrard artist biography
Irish-born artist John Gerrard works with cutting edge real time computer graphics, originally developed by the military and co-opted by the gaming industry, to create his virtual worlds. These simulated installations or projections, which have the appearance of video, often explore isolated geographical locations and combine Gerrard’s interest in power bases or networks of energy – think Google’s giant data server in the plains of Oklahoma or military training camps in the African desert in Djibouti.
Thomas Dane Gallery exhibition
On show at Thomas Dane, London you’ll discover two major works. For the first time since its acclaimed presentation at Lincoln Centre Plaza, New York last year, the John Gerrard Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada)
installation will be shown in the UK. The frameless LED wall projection is a computer simulation of a solar thermal power plant, surrounded by 10, 000 mirrors which reflect sunlight to heat molten salts which essentially generates electricity. Over the course of a 365-day year, the work simulates the actual movements of the sun, moon and stars, as they would appear at the Nevada site, with numerous mirrors adjusting their positions in real time. The work has instant impact and keeps surprising as these small changes occur.
The second work, Farm (Pryor Creek, Oklahoma), is a simulation of Google’s ‘data farm’; the site of a leviathan data server flanked by diesel generators and large cooling towers. It’s all the more poignant given that Google denied Gerrard access to the site, meaning he had to recreate the structure from an extensive photographic survey conducted with the aid of a helicopter. Viewing Gerrard’s works is like being shunted into an eerie and futuristic world, all the more strange when you realise you are looking at the present.