John Gerrard has built a practice developing simulation as a language and material, using this mode to examine issues related to energy, consumption, and environmental exploitation. “Smoke Hands (Dark) 2022” is a spatial WebGL sketch showing the artist’s hands cupped around dark smoke. The work was produced in early 2022 to test ideas around subjects of ecology, responsibility, futurism, and politics. Click and drag in background to look around the scene. The smoke, which is produced by a particle system, recalls the artist’s previous works, “Western Flag (Dalhart, Texas) 2017” and the earlier Smoke Tree series of 2006-7. “Smoke Hands” juxtaposes a symbol of destruction with a gesture of offering, instantly evoking the tension, absurdity, and peril of our dependence on carbon-based energy. As the artist says, “I like the sense that we are holding an uncertain future in our hands — or that we are protecting a global petro system that is in essence impossible.”
Producer: Werner Poetzelberger
Programmer: Helmut Bressler