Have you ever looked closely at a sunflower? Its seeds, arranged in opposite logarithmic spirals, follow the golden ratio with mathematical precision, turning apparent randomness into a sublime order. Nature, often chaotic to our eyes, conceals invisible patterns capable of revealing profound harmonies. As Albert Einstein said: “Nature is the embodiment of the highest and simplest mathematical laws.” Canadian artist Matt Deslauriers, now based in England, explores this dialogue between chaos and structure, transforming it into art through digital tools and data analysis techniques.
Deslauriers embodies the contemporary figure of the computer artist, reflecting an era dominated by technology and data. It is only natural: if the reality around us is made of numbers, why not use them to interpret and represent the world? Far from impoverishing art, this methodology enriches it, showing how art continuously adapts to the tools and sensibilities of each era. Modern technological revolutions, including blockchain, allow us to create and trade digital art, introducing the concept of digital ownership. But Sferic is much more than a digital project.
The Sferic Project: Turning Chaos into Art
One of Deslauriers’ most iconic works is The Sferic Project, which explores the essence of natural phenomena through the lens of technology. Launched in 2023, the project captures natural radio waves emitted by the Earth, known as sferics, using a VLF (Very Low Frequency) receiver. These waves, generated by lightning and other atmospheric phenomena, are transformed into digital data that feed generative artworks and innovative cryptographic protocols.
Every second, around 44 lightning strikes illuminate the sky, emitting electromagnetic energy that travels thousands of kilometers. These signals, oscillating between 300 Hz and 13 kHz, manifest as poetic crackles and whistles, an invisible heartbeat narrating nature’s rhythm. Just as John Cage, revolutionizing his time, gave voice to silence with his 4'33", The Sferic Project gives artistic form to what is normally imperceptible, creating a bridge between natural chaos and human perception.
The Art of Randomness
Randomness is a fundamental element in generative art. Yet most digital systems rely on pseudo-random generators, predictable by nature. Deslauriers’ atmospheric recordings offer authentic, aperiodic, non-deterministic randomness, something only the living world can produce. This uniqueness was even used in 2023 during Ethereum blockchain’s KZG Ceremony, where atmospheric data improved network scalability protocols.
Creating this project required Deslauriers to radically step away from modernity. Like an astronomer seeking dark skies free from light pollution, he traveled to pristine locations in the UK, South Korea, and Japan to avoid electromagnetic interference. These spaces, transformed into natural studios, allowed him to engage directly with nature, producing works that merge landscape, technology, and creativity.
Artistic Parallels: From Land Art to Computer Art
The dialogue between nature and technology in Sferic echoes the explorations of artists like Robert Smithson and Walter De Maria, whose Land Art projects turned natural landscapes into monumental works. Smithson’s spirals and De Maria’s installations, such as The Lightning Field, reflect a shared interest in nature’s primal forces.
Similarly, in generative art, pioneers like Vera Molnár used algorithms to explore structured randomness. Deslauriers continues this tradition but with a unique approach: using authentic atmospheric data to craft an aesthetic narrative, pushing the boundaries between natural and artificial.
A notable parallel can also be drawn with Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, famous for works like The Weather Project (2003). Both Eliasson and Deslauriers share a sensitivity to nature as a source of inspiration, demonstrating how art can make tangible the interconnection between humans and their environment.
The Future of the Project
This is a long-term research endeavor, developing gradually over many months. Each new recording offers an opportunity to refine the technique, avoiding unwanted interference and isolating electromagnetic sources.
The ultimate goal is ambitious: to use these recordings as an authentic source of randomness for a new series of generative, audiovisual, and immersive works. Conceived as a bridge between nature and technology, these works will be revealed in future exhibitions, marking another chapter in Deslauriers’ artistic experimentation.
The Beauty of the Invisible
The Sferic Project is not just an artwork—it is an invitation to rediscover the hidden beauty in everyday life. By translating the inaudible into sensory, auditory, and visual form, Deslauriers encourages us to see the world with new eyes, reconnecting with nature’s primordial essence through advanced tools.
This research bridges past and future, drawing on the contemplation of nature by ancient masters while embedding it in a technological and cryptographic context. Art becomes not only an aesthetic exercise but a transformative experience, revealing beauty even where it was least expected.
Matt Deslauriers shows how art can uncover beauty in the world around us, restoring a sense of natural wonder—even through the most advanced technology.
