I chose to visit the Hirshhorn Museum to see an exhibition by John Gerrard. The works displayed in this exhibition were crafted in 2007 and 2008, and are almost entirely computer generated. There are three pieces, all digital, two of which are shown on LCD television screens, and the third which is projected onto a large white wall. The Hirshhorn Museum website summarizes Gerrard’s creations as follows: “He uses customized 3-D gaming software to re-imagine landscape art. For the works in this exhibition, Gerrard photographed actual sites from 360 degrees and then simulated cinematic movement around the sites using the computer.”[1] Gerrard is an Irish artist who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and is particularly interested in the Dust Bowl region of the United States.[2]
The exhibition’s two smaller pieces are digitally displayed on LCD television screens that are about 32 inches diagonally. These two pieces share a small, completely white room, where even the tables on which the screens are set are white. The screens are not standalone, and instead have a white, boxy enclosure that provides a thick, white frame around them. A large doorway connects this room to another white room which is dark. This second room has a few couches in the back of it, so that viewers may sit while observing the changing display of the work projected onto the adjacent white wall. This third piece, a projection onto a wall, measures roughly 12 feet by 10 feet. The entire exhibition was silent, save for the faint sound of a fan running inside the projection machine.
The artist chose to use special gaming software to render 3-D panoramas of certain objects or landscapes. The two smaller works are of an oil pump and an agricultural warehouse. The large projection displayed only a panoramic landscape while I observed it, with some small objects in the distance. Each of the works is very realistic looking, however the oil rig piece is particularly exceptional. The artist offers a panoramic view of the oil rig, but from a much closer distance than the other two works. Understanding now how these works were produced, I can understand why the line between fact and fiction appears so blurred in this particular piece. The factor which takes all three pieces up a level in complexity is the dynamic nature of them. Specifically, not only does the “camera perspective” that the viewer is shown revolve around each of the objects or landscapes, but the weather and daylight also constantly change. Clouds slowly form and move around, and the sun even slowly changes position.
I was observing the oil rig piece at around 4:00 PM, and during the next 30 minutes, the daylight shining on the rig faded and the landscape became night, with some clouds forming in the sky. I was amazed by this, and then was even more shocked to realize that outside the museum, the sun had set at the same time as in the landscape. When I first arrived to this exhibition, I was impressed by the realistic graphics presented by the artist. Beyond this precise work, however, I couldn’t see any other factor which made these works all that exceptional. To discover, over the course of thirty minutes of note taking and observing, that the weather and daylight of each of the works was actively changing, simply blew my mind. I am used to observing works of a static nature, and have never before observed a piece in a gallery which actually changed every second that it was being shown. This dynamic nature opened my eyes to an entirely different style of artwork, as it is not something that I have ever looked for in particular in past art viewings. The ability to change over time, however, seems to come with the computerized aspect of the works’ construction. I was particularly glad that photographs of the pieces were allowed, as trying to sketch an artwork that is constantly changing would have proved rather difficult. I have attached several photographs from the exhibition. The images, top to bottom, left to right, are: myself in front of the exhibition, the oil rig (note the exceptional realism), an example of how the works were displayed (oil rig piece), the agricultural facility piece, and the projection piece (low-lighting produced a dark image).
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