Michaela Cutaya falls within the orbit of John Gerrard’s virtual constructions in her analysis of this year’s featured project at the Galway Arts Festival.
In July 2012, John Gerrard co-organized with the philosopher Robin Mackay a round table discussion ‘Simulation Exercise Operation’.1 An interdisciplinary group of participants were invited to address the increased role of simulation in all aspects of our life, and whether a definite distinction between the simulated and the real was still valid.
Simulation and its shifting relationship to reality is an ongoing concern in Gerrard’s artworks. The technology that he has appropriated, from 3D scanner to Realtime gaming engine into his practice as sculptor and photographer has enabled him to develop what he calls ‘sculptural photography’. According to Gerrard ‘One aspect of the virtual, or real-time 3D medium that has always fascinated me is the extent to which the temporal becomes a sculptural component within it.’2 His virtual ‘portraits’ – which include trees, storms, buildings or soldiers as well as faces – combine photographs and gaming technology to redeploy the subject in virtual time and space.
The two large-scale digital projections, presented at this year’s Galway Arts Festival, Cuban School (Community 5th of October) 2010 and Cuban School (Sancti Spiritu) 2011 are the virtual portraits of two schools on the outskirts of Havana. The artist’s attention was initially drawn by the incongruity of their architecture in this landscape and their dilapidated appearance. Built in the 1960s using technology and ideology borrowed from the Soviet Union, the pre-university schools were part of an ambitious education programme by the Cuban government to mix work and study. The disappointing results of the programme and the expiration of resources are reflected in the decaying conditions of the buildings. The structures were not abandoned however and the artist referred to them as ‘functioning ruins’ as a group made up of members of staff and students struggle to keep them going against all odds. Intriguingly or coincidentally the schools have effectively been closed since the making of the work.
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