Leon Keer’s ‘Nature’s Algorithm’: A Monument to Stillness in a Restless Age
In downtown Des Moines, street artist Leon Keer has unveiled his newest large-scale anamorphic work, Nature’s Algorithm, an 8,600 sq ft (800 m²) mural painted in just 21 days with collaborator Massina (Marije Spelbos) for DSM public art. Known for his optical precision and narrative depth, Keer transforms a parking structure into an architectural meditation on attention, technology, and the enduring intelligence of the natural world.
Stacked retro televisions dominate the façade, each screen glowing with scenes of wildlife: an elk at dusk, monarch butterflies in motion, flowers unfolding in radiant detail, an eagle suspended mid-flight. The illusion is immaculate, but the message is intentional. Keer collapses the distance between nostalgia and futurity, asking us to reconsider what we choose to watch, and what we allow to shape us.
At the heart of the mural lies a question the artist poses directly:
“In a world that never stops
scrolling, our attention has become the new currency.
Every swipe pulls us deeper into a stream of noise, flashing lights, fast edits, and endless opinions. The more we watch, the more the algorithm learns what keeps Us restless.
What if, instead of feeding it chaos, we fed it calm?
What if we chose to linger on the sound of wind through the trees, the slow rhythm of waves, the geometry of leaves unfolding in sunlight?
The algorithm would start to listen.
It would begin to show us what we seek, not outrage, but awe. Not Not distraction, but depth.
When we tune our digital habits to the beauty of nature.
We remind the machine, and ourselves, that the most powerful algorithm is not online.
It’s the one that has been running for billions of years: ‘Nature’s algorithm’ patient, balanced, and infinitely wise.”
On the wall, those ideas become image. Nature is not background; it is the counter-algorithm… older, steadier and more intelligent than any data feed.
With Nature’s Algorithm, Keer imagines a different possibility, one that returns us to slowness, awe, and sensory clarity.
These words resonate across the painted screens. Here, nature becomes the counter-algorithm, a system older, wiser, and infinitely more balanced than anything engineered by human hands.
Nature’s Algorithm doesn’t offer escape so much as recalibration. In a landscape of constant motion and constant notification, Leon Keer’s mural invites a different rhythm: to stand still, to look closely, and to remember that attention, given freely, is still one of the most powerful gestures we have.
But Leon Keer’s vision extends beyond paint. In a seamless fusion of analogue illusion and digital possibility, he has integrated augmented reality, allowing viewers to activate a hidden layer of the mural through their devices. The AR component was developed in collaboration with Joost Spec of 3DPicnic, who produced the 3D animation and interactive features that bring Nature’s Algorithm to life.
The result is a mural that depicts nature! it breathes, moves, and responds.