For Bruce, light is a language; an illumination of perspective; an application of shade and colour that lends itself to articulating emotional expressions of a place or space. A process of experimental trial-and-error led to the creation of Field of Light’s optical fibre spheres, with Bruce consciously amplifying the material’s lesser-explored natural tendencies.

“Everything has a reaction to light, whether it’s a brick or a blade of grass or a tree… I was playing around and thinking, if I amass a number of these together, it will hopefully take on a kind of living organism feel.”

By day, the lights disappear into the lush spinifex, honey grevillea and desert heath myrtle. By night, they glow amongst it.

“Often artists will always try to make a material do what it shouldn’t be doing,” he adds with a grin. “But fibre, when it’s manufactured, has this really coily, tendril-like structure. The beautiful thing about it is when you take a light source, and you pop it on one end of that fibre, it will move along the fibre, rather like how water moves along a leaky water pipe. What you’re actually seeing is imperfections in the wall of the fibre, where the light escapes; it’s really internal reflection that’s happening.”

The same could be said for Bruce’s creative process: internal reflection expressed, mirroring the communal awe the majestic panorama elicits for all visitors. The orbs are totally solar-powered and have required minimal intervention since their installation a decade ago; renewals and replacements of certain components are due every three to five years, but otherwise they quietly sway without demanding much from their surroundings.

“The really important thing for me was that I didn’t want it to be bright. I wanted it to be in balance with the natural light in the sky, the stars and the moon,” he says. “You have to work with the landscape. You can’t just plonk it on.”

Much of the desert’s power and impact comes from the way light and night interact with the environment. Out here, sunrises and sunsets amplify the intense reds, greens and brush browns of the land and the vivid blues, oranges and purples of the sky; the rays sharpen the 348-metre-tall silhouette of Uluru to spiritual proportions. When the moon ascends, the inky blanket of night is a black canvas for the stunningly bright constellations that path around the Milky Way. Walking through the installation at dusk, the orbs wave and ripple with a palette of ochre, violet, cobalt and pearl.

“If Monet had painted haystacks, can you imagine what he would’ve done with Uluru?” Bruce says. “We wanted to introduce the colours that you would get in Uluru, particularly the colours of the morning sky. It’s an incredible array of colour: the warm reds, mauve-y colours that you get on the rock itself.”

Interrupting that with light pollution was never an option.

“If you go there, standing in the middle of the installation, I remember looking up at the stars, the huge sky. The stars come down to the horizon, and there are points where it looks and feels like you’re standing in a circle of light, with the stars above you in balance with the light on the ground.”

Within the completely unparalleled context of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site and the ancestral home of the Anangu, the large-scale installation heightens the experience of place – this place – and draws attention towards the spiritual centre of the country. Visitors are invited into the eternal conversation, energetically summoned to share in the gravity of the moment, where time stands still, and space yawns open into a universe bigger than the present.

“It’s rather like a pinch-me moment. The only thing I can think of why Field of Light has endured is that it allows you to discover it on your own terms. And there’s no sound to it. It’s just the beautiful sounds of the desert,” Bruce muses.

The desert oaks whistle and wave, the grasses whisper and the soft secrets of the landscape reveal themselves, with mighty Uluru watching over all.

“These ancient landscapes that we inhabit are things we should be understanding and appreciating in the world around us. Everything comes from landscape. It all comes from the earth,” Bruce says. “You just want to let the place be itself.”