STANDARD
Video, 2023
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About the artwork
STANDARD, 2023 (formerly Surrender Flag) depicts a white flag, a symbol of peace, formed from plumes of water vapour evaporating in a desert landscape in Nevada. Though fragile and ephemeral, the flag stands as a cautiously optimistic signpost pointing towards a world less dependent on fossil fuels. For gerrard, the work 'looks to the future, towards ideas of stoppage, parlay and submission to larger planetary realities'. The work proposes that we share one atmosphere, an invisible commons that recognises no national or political boundaries, and that we may choose collectively how to care for it.
The work is a continuous simulation made using real-time computer graphics software. Every frame is generated live at approximately 50 frames per second, no two moments 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 near the Mojave Desert in Nevada. Day lengths shifting across a full 365-day cycle.
The collector downloads and runs the software on a local PC, accompanied by a paper certificate of authenticity or an Ethereum blockchain token serving as on-chain proof of ownership.
Commissioned by Catherine Walsh and premiered at the Hayward Gallery, London, 2023.
Producer: Werner Poetzelberger
Programmer: Helmut Bressler
Landscape scanning: Cedarleaf VFX
Exhibition design by Jakob Illera/Inseq.
Game engine by Unigine
Commissioned by Catherine Walsh and presented by U2 in U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere.
john gerrard is a pivotal figure in the development of simulation within contemporary art. The artist’s works are real-time digital simulations built with game-engine technology, occupying an uncanny territory between documentary precision and technological mediation. Neither film nor video, the works are autonomous virtual worlds that unfold according to their own internal logic, some synchronised to actual solar and atmospheric conditions, others driven by algorithmic choreography, others reconstructing historical moments within contemporary landscapes.
For more than two decades, gerrard's practice has examined the hidden architectures of contemporary power: the industrial structures, energy networks, and algorithmic systems that underpin modern existence yet remain largely invisible to those who depend on them. From the factory farms of Oklahoma to the data centres of middle America, from the solar thermal plants of the Nevada desert to the oil fields of Spindletop, Texas, gerrard renders visible the material substrates of a networked world.
Work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and other major institutions. Multiple works are held in LACMA's permanent collection including washington.stream, Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada), and World Flag. gerrard was recipient of the Art + Technology Lab Grant at LACMA in 2017, producing Neural Exchange, an early exploration of art, performance and AI neural networks.
Major presentations include Channel 4's Earth Day broadcast, 2017; Somerset House, London, 2017; Desert X (Palm Springs), 2019; the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, at COP25, 2019; Okayama Art Summit, Japan, curated by Pierre Huyghe; Dark Mofo, Tasmania, 2023; the Hayward Gallery, London, 2023; U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere, Las Vegas, 2023; and the Folkestone Triennial, 2025. A current commission, SPIRITS, unfolds across LACMA from December 2025 through December 2026.