Western Flag is a virtual art installation by Irish artist John Gerrard simulating a black flag made of smoke on the site of the ‘Lucas Gusher’ – the world’s first major oil find – in Spindletop, Texas in 1901, now barren and exhausted
The artists says, “One of the greatest legacies of the 20th century is not just population explosion or better living standards but vastly raised carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. A new flag attempts to give this invisible gas, this international risk, an image, a way to represent itself. I like to think of it as a flag for a new kind of world order.”