ANN ARBOR—In these days of instantaneous communication with access to information readily available on nearly any subject, traditional notions of time and space have been challenged, redefined and uprooted.

Along with the excitement of changes brought by digital technology and the Internet, such changes ask us whether something fundamental to the human soul” to individual experience of lived history and actual place” is at risk of being lost.

” Mary Lucier: The Plains of Sweet Regret,” opening Saturday at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, explores how a culture of relentless change can influence notions of place and of individual relationships to the natural world. In a series of images ranging from the majestic rural plains of North Dakota to indelible reflections of small-town life, Lucier wanders the great western frontier and delves into deserted places, such as churches, schools, homes” places once inhabited but rendered empty by the shifting tides of population.

Using five channels of synchronized video and surround sound, Lucier evokes a melancholic portrait of a quieter life on the Great Plains that is slipping into history, leaving a haunting resonance of a fading legacy. Her work follows in the tradition of great American artists who have explored the grandeur, promise, and stark beauty of the western frontier, a tradition ranging from early 19th-century paintings by artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and Fredric Edwin Church, through the modernist visions of Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Unlike her predecessors, Lucier aims to move beyond the myths of the west as an American Eden, a frontier of unassailable freedom fostered by an infatuation with exploration and an independence born of defiance. In her art, she juxtaposes contemporary realities with the implied presence of a lost world.

In earlier, highly acclaimed work such as ” Floodsongs” from 1997, Lucier captured images of the human loss following the Red River flood on the northern plains. At the time, the flood caused the largest evacuation since the years immediately after the Civil War. In contrast, ” The Plains of Sweet Regret” is more layered with a subtle sense of grief and longing. Lucier’s striking visual lexicon includes stark change of the seasons, the dance of a bucking horse, a birth of a calf, and musings on the continuing energy of rodeo culture.

Lucier’s new project began when she was commissioned by the North Dakota Museum of Art to travel across the state to observe and record some of the visual manifestations of how outward migration was sweeping away some of the defining characteristics of western life. Gone from the landscape are prevalent images of the lone farmer, cowboys, and field hands, replaced with the hulking remnants of abandoned farm buildings and the symbols of omnipresent agribusiness with its massive machinery and precise crop management techniques.

The contrast of the old and new frontier will likely provoke viewers to ask: What is lost in the name of economic efficiency and cultural expediency? How has technological innovation wrought unintended demographic changes? Is this loss of a way of life to be mourned? How do the specifics of change on the plains apply to all living in the United States in the 21st century?

” Mary Lucier: The Plains of Sweet Regret” opens Saturday, (Sept. 30) and will be on exhibit through Nov. 19.

Through fall 2008, the University of Michigan Museum of Art will be located in a temporary exhibition space called UMMA Off/Site, 1301 South University at the corner of South Forest. Hours: 11 a.m.