IGNIS July 2015 | Page 16

What do 16,000 water bottles, fibre optics and the music of many nations have in common? They form an installation known as “WaterTowers”, a work based on Munro’s interest in synaesthesia (seeing sound in colour). First created for Salisbury Cathedral in 2010, the installation consists of 69 towers, two metres tall, made from over 200 stacked water bottles and illuminated by optic fibres that change colour in response to the music emanating from within them. https://vimeo.com/35004105 What links the sea and used CDs? CDSea from 2010 is an innovative use of recycled material inspired by an incident from his time in Australia. One Sunday afternoon sitting on a rocky peninsula at Nielsen Park, a beautiful Sydney Harbour beach, he remembers “…the light was still strong, like a blanket of shimmering silver light. I had this childish notion that by putting my hand in the sea I was somehow connected to my father’s home in Salcombe, Devon.” Years later he recreated that feeling in the field next to his home in Wiltshire, playing with natural light reflected off a sea of silver CDs. However if this work inspires you, you may need to start with a more moderate design, this one involved 600,000 used CDs, 140 people and took 3 weeks to install. Bruce Munro, CDSea at Long Knoll, Wiltshire 2010 https://vimeo.com/34894008