John Gerrad combines digital signage and simulation for his public artwork 'Solar Reserve'’

Almost 5.000 Photographs, una gran pantalla Led y la combinación de las técnicas de simulación y digital signage han sido los elementos claves para que John Gerrard pudiera crear su obra de arte público ‘Solar Reserve’ que fue exhibida en el Lincoln Center de Nueva York.

‘Solar Reserve’ (Tonopah, Snowfall) 2014 es la obra de arte público más ambiciosa del artista irlandés John Gerrard y la primera que realiza en los Estados Unidos. Este trabajo fue encargado por el Lincoln Center de Nueva York y el Public Art Fund y exhibido entre el 3 de octubre y el 1 December 2014 en la Josie Robertson Plaza de este centro de artes escénicas.

Para realizar esta obra, John Gerrard utilizó como soporte una pantalla Led sin marco de 8,5 X 7,3 meters and combined digital signage technologies and simulation to offer an immersive visual experience.

‘Solar Reserve’ is a work that recreates a solar thermal power plant in Nevada and the surrounding desert landscape, all immersed in a virtual world that changes throughout the day. At the center of this playful environment was a tower surrounded by 10.000 Mirrors that reflect sunlight and adjust their positions in real time according to the location of the sun.

The work simulates the real movements of the sun, The moon and stars in the sky, as they would appear on the Nevada site.

This hyper-realistic simulation was created with a team of programmers who use a sophisticated video game engine that places the sun., the moon and stars as they would appear at the actual site of Nevada over the course of a year. How this virtual world rotates on the axis of the earth over the course of a day of 24 hours, The viewer's perspective gradually shifts from ground level to satellite view every 60 minutes, so that no point of view is the same at any time during the course of the exhibition.

The result is a play of light and shadow that visitors could enjoy from different perspectives according to the time they came to the center..

For the project, Gerrard sent a photographer to the Tonopah area to act as “Human scanner” and could document everything that could be seen in the power plant Solar thermal, from the brightest surfaces to the smallest rocks located in the driest areas. In the end, had almost 5.000 Photos with all kinds of environments and light environments at sunset, Dawn and dusk. With these images the programming team designed the 3D modeling and the result was passed to the 'game engine'.

This work of public art is also based on the complex choreography of astronomy today., since the sun, the moon and stars meet as they would appear at the actual site of Nevada over the course of a year..

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_XfgP0iTn0[/youtube]

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