Project Name: The Invasion of Farm Cove

Artist: Dale Jones-Evans

Materials: LED's

Dimensions: 1 square klm

Description: The beautiful circumferential body of water that is Farm Cove has a broad naturally defined edge that runs into Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden, it is also in part shaped by a man-made sandstone sea wall.

The names of the site themselves, ‘farm’ cove and a ‘botanic’ garden inspired the thoughts of plant life naturally seeding, and growing to extend into and from the sea bed.

It seems natural that as the land curves inwards toward the water, so too would the plant life dream of extending.  The artist imagines a biological force, where by the plant life has developed beyond its physical and natural constraints. It is seeding from, while talking to, the botanic context and seabed. Its submerged ambient and radiant light acts as a sensor.

The installation transforms the seabed into a botanic oasis where the colours and masses of botanicals bloom brightly. The botanicals are presented as a body of light emerging from under the waters surface.  The rings of light are positioned to abstractly mirror the circumferential placements of botanic trees that dot the surrounding landscape.

Macro scaled light rings are aggregated and form a mass of parts; thousands of micro lights merge together to form larger clusters, and in turn cultivate the underwater landscape in an eerie but seductive submerged form. While the light rings talk of site context the atmosphere they generate speaks of a multiplied space. Where a biological sense of the ongoing and a transformation, mutation or evolution of a life force takes place. To some extent there is a sense of the potential for the infinite buried in the art installations sense.

Designed with 5,000 light components, the cells cluster in random yet intentional radial patterns. The installation was designed with the intention to match the scale of the cove, and to create an awe-inspiring botanic water garden. The cells appear as though with time, they would continue to multiply and grow to take over the harbours.

 The silhouette of the underwater garden will change with the viewers’ perspective, from the changing texture of the sea surface and tidal movement. This will add to the dynamic of the art installation, with varying levels of lux and movement under the waters surface generating hypnotic patterns.

 It has multiple perspective readings; when viewed from the air the ‘art garden’s’ electrical pulse of light and monotone colour is as iconic as the Opera House, Harbour Bridge or Botanic Garden itself, the light is visible by day and radiant by night.