• Grant Stevens, Below the mountains and beyond the desert, a river runs through a valley of forests and grasslands, towards an ocean (2020)

    Procedurally generated computer graphics with sound, multiple display formats (1-3 video channels), endless duration. UTS Art Collection, commissioned 2020. Docqment Photography

Grant Stevens

Below the mountains and beyond the desert, a river runs through a valley of forests and grasslands, towards an ocean

2020
Procedurally generated computer graphics with sound, 48:9.
Infinite duration

UTS Art Collection, commissioned 2020
Accession number: 2020.012

Located in UTS Central, Jones St Lobby
Building 2, Level 4A
(CB02.4A)


Below the mountains and beyond the desert, a river runs through a valley of forests and grasslands, towards an ocean is a computer-generated artwork programmed to change and evolve over a limitless duration. Seventy cameras are positioned throughout a vast simulated landscape, each capturing scenic vistas of forests, deserts, mountains, lakes, oceans, and grasslands. As in the natural environment, day and night come and go, the ocean ebbs and flows with the tides, seasons pass, the weather changes, and the landscape evolves. Over extended cycles of time, geological features are eroded and uplifted; trees grow and decay.

In this artificial world, time is accelerated: in an hour, four days will have passed; in a year’s time, 100 years will have been produced; ten years will replicate 1000 years. And yet, the experience of viewing the artwork seems to decelerate time. The cameras slowly pan through the landscape, capturing subtle changes in the weather, light, and features in the landscape. This slow pace runs counter to today’s urges for instant gratification and hyperactive digital graphics.

In a context where digital technologies and interfaces often compete for slices of our fragmented attention, this artwork offers an alternative. This is a world in perpetual and harmonious flux, idealised and synthesised through digital programming. It is self-regulating and self-sustaining, devoid of human presence. It offers opportunities to reflect on and tune into the natural rhythms and cycles of the natural environment, even in the midst of our typically hectic daily lives.

Below the mountains...gives us an opportunity to tune in to the natural cycles of the environment. Whether that means visiting the work once or over the course of a degree, you will see this environment in different states of change, and maybe in small ways reflect on those cycles of change that are always around us.

-Grant Stevens