‘A digital sands of time effect’ is how Gordon refers to a still life painting by Henri Fantin-Latour that he recreated by a sorting algorithm to reorder the pixels. Paying homage to New Order’s album cover of ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’ and to still life painting’s history, particularly the Dutch Golden Age coined as the birth of Modern Capitalism, Gordon’s installation poetically raises questions about this era of art history and its relationship to nature in this digital and algorithmic age.

In collaboration with Spark AR creator Ommy commissioned by Meta, Gordon Cheung developed an AR experience conveying capitalist growth through the Dutch Golden Age phenomena “tulip mania” for the Meta Headquarters. Producing tulips into infinity until the rare black tulip makes itself visible, this AR effect highlights the futility of materialism and repetition of history – exploring questions about our humanity.