6 ms·

After seeing the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at the Tate Modern a few years ago I tracked down the components to build my own low pressure sodium vapour light

After seeing the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at the Tate Modern a few years ago I tracked down the components to build my own low pressure sodium vapour light. It's so weird, as those people say, so see things coloured... yet monochrome.

jlarcombe 3y ago
I rather miss them in the streets. It's only been, what, ten years or so since they've been replacing most of them with white LEDs round my way, but it's almost hard to remember that everything was yellow whenever you went out in the dark! Especially amazing atmosphere when it snowed...
- BoxOfRain 3y ago
  I really prefer the old yellow sodium light to the harsher white LEDs, I get that the SOX bulbs weren't economical to make any more for various reasons but wish we could have migrated to monochromatic yellow LEDs instead of white ones. They're not just more pleasant aesthetically, they're also better for insects and animals than broad-spectrum white lights. I don't get the obsession with making lights as cold and harsh as possible, give me warm light that makes the night look like night rather than a bad approximation of day. At least by the time they got round to doing my street they used a lower temperature white than the ultra-harsh 'prison yard white' colour used in the earlier installations.
  - djmips 3y ago
    I don't have any solid evidence but I feel like the LED also disturbs sleep of people who live near street lamps. Also I found out recently that never putting an outdoor light shining upwards is somewhat less disruptive to moth navigation.
harywilke 3y ago
I was fortunate to be at the Tate for that exhibition and got to see when they turned the 'sun' off at closing time. I was visiting my brother in London at the time, he wasn't a big fan of modern art, so we split up, I went to the Tate, he went elsewhere to sight see, then later at dinner after effusing over the 'sun' exhibit and showing him photos of how cool it was, we rushed across town to get in just before closing. We got to see it together for about 10 minutes, before they turned it off. It went from a Sun to the Moon. Spectacular.

jlarcombe 3y ago

I rather miss them in the streets. It's only been, what, ten years or so since they've been replacing most of them with white LEDs round my way, but it's almost hard to remember that everything was yellow whenever you went out in the dark! Especially amazing atmosphere when it snowed...

BoxOfRain 3y ago
I really prefer the old yellow sodium light to the harsher white LEDs, I get that the SOX bulbs weren't economical to make any more for various reasons but wish we could have migrated to monochromatic yellow LEDs instead of white ones. They're not just more pleasant aesthetically, they're also better for insects and animals than broad-spectrum white lights. I don't get the obsession with making lights as cold and harsh as possible, give me warm light that makes the night look like night rather than a bad approximation of day. At least by the time they got round to doing my street they used a lower temperature white than the ultra-harsh 'prison yard white' colour used in the earlier installations.
- djmips 3y ago
  I don't have any solid evidence but I feel like the LED also disturbs sleep of people who live near street lamps. Also I found out recently that never putting an outdoor light shining upwards is somewhat less disruptive to moth navigation.

harywilke 3y ago

I was fortunate to be at the Tate for that exhibition and got to see when they turned the 'sun' off at closing time. I was visiting my brother in London at the time, he wasn't a big fan of modern art, so we split up, I went to the Tate, he went elsewhere to sight see, then later at dinner after effusing over the 'sun' exhibit and showing him photos of how cool it was, we rushed across town to get in just before closing. We got to see it together for about 10 minutes, before they turned it off. It went from a Sun to the Moon. Spectacular.