I don’t normally associate solar power with Lincoln Center, but there is a giant exhibition running until December 1 featuring a 28-by-24-foot LED wall that changes slowly, focusing on an overhead view of a solar tower and solar mirrors. The piece is Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014, by Irish artist John Gerrard. According to the Lincoln Center website:
This digital simulation displayed on a 28 × 24 foot frameless LED wall re-creates a Nevada solar thermal power plant and the surrounding desert landscape. At the center of this dazzling virtual world is a tower surrounded by 10,000 mirrors that adjust their positions in real time according to the location of the sun and reflect light upon the tower to generate electricity.
This hyper-realistic simulation is created with a team of programmers using a sophisticated video game engine that situates the sun, moon, and stars as they would appear at the actual Nevada site over the course of a year. As this virtual world rotates on the earth’s axis throughout a 24-hour day, the perspective of the viewer gradually shifts from ground level to satellite view every 60 minutes, so that no view is precisely the same at any point during the course of the exhibition.
At first I thought it was a live shot of the Nevada solar plant, but learned that it is a simulation run by video game type technology. I sat and watched the screen for about 30 minutes on Sunday, watching the patterns and reactions of people. Some watched intently, some gave it scant notice, while others took photos and selfies of the display. I’m sure I will focus on it more in the coming weeks with various interpretations of the work. An interesting work at Lincoln Center.