The Tepees light installation by Bruce Monro shines brightly in the cool night air of Cheekwood, Tennessee's botanical gardens and museum of art. The colorful array of semi-vertical fluorescent light tubes was discovered in a manner you may have never thought possible.
Source: Bruce Monro
The story Bruce tells is: "The lighting technique used in Tepees was first discovered when Munro was looking for a way to keep his wife's chickens safe from the foxes at their rural home in Wiltshire. A local farmer came to the rescue offering a solution in the guise of a device that combined an electric fence system with a redundant fluorescent lighting tube (one that has been spent). Years later Munro decided that tepee structures were the best composition for the fluorescent tubes. He was pleased with the result both formally and personally, for the mythic American West as depicted in films and TV had held his imagination as a boy growing up in England." (Bruce Monro's website)
Constructed of fluorescent tube lights, colored filters and electric fence energizers, the piece looks great in photographs but in person things are a bit different. Due to the frequent and fast?flashing of the fluorescent tubes, the eye is not capable of seeing the tepees lit all in a group, such as you see below.
Source: Bruce Monro
It can only pick up the intermittent flashing tubes of light. However the camera lens is great at capturing the entire series of flashes, and confidently?reveals the complete light installation as a whole piece. Watch the video below for a good look at what the human eye may see while at the Tepee light installation in Tenn. For more information visit: Bruce Monro
