A Giant Web of Light emerged within After Dark: A Midwinter’s Night as a quiet but magnetic surreal centrepiece, an installation that invited audiences to slow down, look, and surrender to a sense of romantic landscape and wonder. Suspended between trees, the work hovered delicately in the landscape, its crystal raindrops catching and refracting light creating shifting patterns on the ground. McDermott Baxter highlighted the ways in which light can alter perception, turning the familiar and everyday into the extraordinary. The tree became both host and collaborator, supporting a temporary ecosystem of light.
Within the broader context of After Dark, where fire, shop front peep show performances, and roving acts animated the night, Web of Light offered a counterpoint: a moment of stillness amid the spectacle. Visitors encountered it unexpectedly, discovering its geometry, soft glow and interplay of shadow and sparkle. This sense of discovery was central to the installation’s intent.
At just 2m × 2m, the work was intimate in scale yet impactful in effect. Acting as a beacon, it drew people into playful engagement, momentarily casting the viewer in the role of the spider, navigating a luminous web and encouraging them to look more closely at the environment around them like a child discovering a spiders web for the first time. In doing so, Web of Light embodied the spirit of After Dark: a celebration of the unexpected, the ephemeral, and the quietly transformative power of art in public space.
Artist: Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter.
Date: 2022.
Medium: Tree, crystals, net and rigging, LED Lightsource.
Dimension: 2m x 2m.
Location: Wonnarua Country, Maitland Hunter, NSW Australia.
