The Ephemeral Lake is a living instrument where life emerges and vanishes within a real-time simulated world and generative musical composition. The artwork sings and continuously transforms from environmental to inner mental worlds, and through its real-time simulation every user experience is never the same.
Originally commissioned by the Hamburger Kunsthalle as part of the anniversary birthday celebrations for Caspar David Friedrich, it was born from Steensen’s ecological fieldwork to California’s Mojave Desert during the Winter of 2023, and explores temporary bodies of water only possible via unique climatic conditions. In geology, the concept of an "ephemeral lake" is used to study aquatic ecosystems appearing a few times a century within arid landscapes. Those within the Mojave sit within a network of ancient waterway systems and The Ephemeral Lake is heavily inspired from Lake Manly specifically.
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The Ephemeral Lake