At 21, I read Lyall Watson’s ‘Gifts of Unknown Things’, in which he described Tia, a young Indonesian girl with the gift of seeing sounds in colour — a neurological condition I later learned is called “synesthesia,” where the activation of one sense simultaneously triggers another.
From that moment, I was captivated by the connection between sound and colour. I have explored this through abstracted cylinders of light in several works, from a private commission in 2006 to the 2010 installation Water Towers, and the idea of a lighted orchestral installation has been waiting in my sketchbook since 2011.
This installation realises that vision: a light-responsive Symphonic Orchestra. One hundred and eight installations — each two metres high and five metres in diameter — will form the layout of an orchestra, with each “musician” represented by the iconic Hill’s Hoist rotary washing line. Encircled by cylindrical arrays of fibre optic cables, each Hills Hoist becomes a column of light, scrolling through a rainbow of colours synchronised to a symphonic soundtrack, translating sound into colour for the viewer.
This installation brings together concepts and techniques refined over many years, finding their unique expression in this landscape.
