Oases of light

It was during a sunset in the middle of the Australian desert that Bruce Munro noticed new life forming on the horizon. What he saw was a plethora of flowers and weeds that had sprouted to life after a brief, but heavy desert rain. The green of life stood in stark contrast to the red, dormant backdrop of the lifeless central Australian outback. He probably didn't know it yet, but this experience would give him inspiration for a timeless design. Now, in 2009, Bruce Munro has created a masterpiece using inspiration from that trip to the Australian center. The UK lighting designer has created "Field of Light," a design made of 6,000 acrylic stems with 24,000 meters of fiber optic cables running through the forest of light. The design is featured at the Eden Project in Cornwall on the top of the roof. A team of five members installed 11 external projectors displaying an amazing array of different colors through the glass spheres. The colorful spheres project a wave-like visualization that symbolizes an almost alien-like intruder to the intermittent blades of grass and clovers in the backdrop. This mesmerizing design is truly something to behold, an out of this world vision. Munro's genius lies in his ability to take a vision right from nature and create an artificial design based on the concept of alien-like beauty. The buzz of the exhibit recreates the energy of the desert that day, just as he saw and felt. Bruce Munro puts it best with his description of the design:

“Field of Light, like a giant surreal camp-site banana, is an alien installation in the midst of nature. And like dry desert seeds lying in wait for the rain, the sculpture’s fiber optic stems lie dormant until darkness falls, and then under a blazing blanket of stars they flower with gentle rhythms of light. ‘Field of Light’ is about the desert as much as the roadside campsites.”

Awesome exhibit! Unfortunately, it just ended March 31st but I just had to write about it.


Sources: Brucemunro.co.uk
Inhabitat, FieldofLight.co.uk