This vast desert and its outlandish centerpiece holds an unbelievable story, unparalleled to anything else, save for fiction. How artists respond is usually with a confirmation of the superlatives that make up Las Vegas.

This month, Stephen Hendee returns to town with The Pinpoint Remains, a site-specific installation in the Clark County Government Center rotunda that taps into the abstract landscape, man-made structures and cultural spectacle. We know Hendee from his glowing futuristic environments made from translucent polypropylene and fluorescent lights, and his Downtown public sculpture, “Monument to the Simulacrum.” Now he takes on the challenging rotunda, a large cylindrical space, architecturally inspired by the natural environment.

Pinpoint, with its gem-like forms and modernist principals, seems akin to sci-fi artifacts from the future, using plastic as a medium to fuse geological formations and commercial architecture. Day-Glo paper placed inside the large sculptures creates a glowing appearance that takes advantage of the sunlight coming through the windows. Hendee has long wanted to work in the space. Pinpoint, he says, is inspired by the ingenuity of the other artists who have worked in the rotunda, creating monumental sculpture from simplistic material.

As for the desert? “It stays with you,” he says. “The promise of all this space, the area and its history allowed things to occur here that might not have otherwise occurred.”