Fiber Optic Sculpture Transforms Field into a Luminous Alien Landscape

To see yourself on an alien planet, you need go no farther than Cornwall, England. That’s where lighting designer Bruce Munro has placed his outdoor installation, “Field of Light.” Thousands of fiber optic cables topped with acrylic orbs illuminate the countryside, giving the impression that the field is populated with bioluminescent vegetation from another world.

Munro’s inspiration for the light installation was a trip through the Australian red desert. The roadside campsites where he stayed often featured statues of surreally large plant and animal life – bananas, pineapples, sheep – as if to overcompensate for the absence of life around them. He also noticed that, after a hard rain, flora would burst from the once barren desert floor. Looking to recreate that sense of surprising and spontaneous life, Munro designed artificial plants that seem to come to life only as darkness falls. By day, the field appears to be an ordinary knoll of grass, but by night, it is transformed into an otherworldly environment:

Field of Light, like a giant surreal camp-side banana, is an alien installation in the midst of nature. And like dry desert seeds lying in wait for the rain, the sculpture’s fibre 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- and like much of Munro’s work is characterised by an almost mystical passion for nature teamed with a robust sense of humour.

“Field of Light” is currently on display on the grounds of the Eden Project, an environmental complex that houses the world’s largest greenhouse. Because it is best viewed during the darker winter months, the installation will remain at the Eden Project until the spring.