John Gerrard
Born 1974 in North Tipperary, Ireland
Lives and works in Dublin, Ireland
John Gerrard is widely regarded as a key figure in the development of simulation within contemporary art. Deceptively looking like film or video, his works are virtual worlds, made using real-time computer graphics, a technology developed by the military and now used extensively in the gaming industry.
Stream of Leaf Work running on Irish Time (GMT)
Leaf Work, 2020
LED wall, mirrored pavilion
Producer: Werner Poetzelberger
Programmer: Helmut Bressler
CG Character Modelling: Max Loegler
CG Character Skinning: Arx Anima
Landscape development: Werner Poetzelberger
Movement Analyst: Esther Balfe
Dancer: Finola Cronin
Drone Photography: The Drone Guys, Sligeachfilms
RGB Aerial Photography, Digital Terrain/Surface Model: Bluesky Geospatial Limited
Oaks : Ailbhe Gerrard / Brookfield Farm
Line Producer (Galway) Declan Gibbons
Line Producer (Vienna) Caroline Ecker
3D Realtime Engine: Unigine
Installation development: Jakob Illera / Inseq Design
Courtesy the artist & Pace Gallery
Originally commissioned by Galway International Arts Festival for Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible by generous assistance from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport and produced in collaboration with Phileas.
John Gerrard’s Leaf Work (Derrigimlah) (2020) presents a lone figure, draped in leaves, moving across an empty landscape. As they slowly move, day turns to night, and seasons changes. The last, or perhaps the only one of their kind, this figure seems consigned to walk for eternity through this landscape. In times of escalating climate crisis they walks mournfully – head down and shoulders slumped – as if in sorrow.
In order to create these images, the artist used the same digital technologies employed by video-game designers. The result is hyperreal – soaring sunsets, leaves that rise and fall with the figure’s movement and opulent clouds dazzle viewers to The Cutaway. Commercial video games today regularly present players with breathtakingly gorgeous, living and breathing worlds of natural beauty; many of them modelled from real environments found around the world. In the space of one generation, as players immerse themselves in these virtual worlds, the real places from which they are inspired slowly cease to exist in real time, under the stress of ecological crisis. In this way, John Gerrard’s Leaf Work functions as a reminder and monument to loss, both in its subject matter and in the materials used to make it.
