Earth v Sky (2012)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commissioned by the City of Sydney and unveiled by Lord Mayor Clover Moore, MP on 24 April, 2012

Location: Bicentennial Park, Glebe, Sydney Harbour

Click on the image below to view City of Sydney’s stop motion video of this work:

 

This environmental art installation, centred on Glebe Point’s magnificent Moreton Bay fig trees, explores the relationship between earth and sky through light and colour.

Lights bathe the trees in their own ever-changing ‘opposite twilight’ for just over an hour each day, just after sunset. To achieve this, a world first custom-built colour-sensitive system continuously samples, then inverts, the colour of the evening sky, rendering the trees light-articulate.

 

 

Ribbons showing colours generated over two separate evenings

 

 

 

 

 

Power to this installation is sustainably offset by the City of Sydney’s first wind turbine. As the earth seeks to balance the sky through colour opposition, the turbine seeks to balance the electrical power used to make this opposition possible.

Materials: electronics, lights, cam, wind turbine

Dimensions: 15m high x 50m x 40m (plus turbine)

Thanks to Mr Snow at the House of Laudanum, and also to Robert Largent (Manager, Design Assistance Division, Key Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, UNSW) for their assistance.