Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014

Ethereum Mainnet·0x2bBd...4D14

Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014 is a computer simulation of a historic power plant known as a solar thermal power tower, surrounded by 10,000 mirrors that reflect sunlight upon it to heat molten salts, forming a thermal battery used to generate electricity. Over the course of a 365–day year, the work simulates the actual movements of the sun, moon, and stars across the sky, as they would appear at the Nevada site, with the thousands of mirrors adjusting their positions in real time according to the position of the sun. This virtual world was constructed by the artist, a team of modelers, and programmers, using a simulation engine. Simultaneously over a 24–hour period the point of view will cycle from ground level to a satellite view every 60 minutes, creating an elaborate choreography among perspectives, 10,000 turning mirrors, and an interplay of light and shadow. Solar Reserve is no longer operational. It was a first-of-a-kind solar project, federally underwritten but technically defeated by ecological failures, storage-tank metallurgy and operationally outpaced by parallel PV cost drops. These hyper sped ecological, technical and political cycles leave now only a still-standing cement tower in the desert alongside this detailed virtual record. The artwork is a real-time software simulation, not a video. Built on a game engine, it generates every frame live at approximately 50 frames per second, with no two moments ever repeating. The simulation is locked to the computer's clock: the sun rises and sets at the exact times it would at the depicted location, and day lengths shift with the seasons across a full 365-day cycle. To own and display the work, the collector downloads and runs this software on a local PC. Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014 exists in a fixed and immutable edition of 5 + 2 artist's proofs (AP). The edition was established in 2014 and is not expanded or altered by tokenization. Each edition is accompanied by a paper based certificate of authenticity or a blockchain art token on the Ethereum network, which serves as the on-chain certificate of authenticity and proof of ownership for that edition. This token is represented on-chain by a proofing still image stored on Ethereum. A 2132 x 1600 video proof compresses one day of the simulation from pre-dawn to dusk into a single viewing, revealing the work's time-bound behaviour as the light shifts across the full arc of the day. Neither the still nor the video proof constitutes the artwork. The online archive of the work is sustained into perpetuity by the john gerrard estate. Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014 is part of the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Gift of the VIA Art Fund) and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Purchased with funds provided by Leonardo DiCaprio). Commissioned by the Lincoln Center in association with the Public Art Fund. The project was supported by the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, Richard J. Massey Foundation for the Arts and Sciences and VIA Art Fund. Produced by Werner Poetzelberger Programmed by Helmut Bressler Terrain and landscape modeled by Adam Donovan Facility and Heliostats modeled by Markus Bliem Project photography by Travis Hall Game engine by Unigine