"Underpass Lights" Artist Sues Everyone
The Riverwalk is synonymous with ‘lights’, and a newly-approved project seeks to improve the darkness of the northeast province of the Riverwalk. But one local artist doesn’t like it. Carly Schnitzel, Head of Riverwalk Lighting, explains.
The world famous San Antonio Riverwalk is well known for its lighting system, consisting of over a half million individual ‘bulbs’ strapped to trees along the river. The current lighting, known as Rio de la Luna by local Spanish speakers, is installed every year in June in a six-month effort to prepare the Riverwalk for Christmas, and then uninstalled in January, in a six-month effort to reach June. With a team of over 40 full-time workers, Rio de la Luna delights visitors for a TBD/variable week in December when it’s switched on, and creates an estimated 400 jobs in the local area.
I’m not a columnist so let me just say that Fitz Gibbon is a major part of this story. But not in this section. And he is instrumental.
Recent controversy
Despite care to protect the Riverbulbs, an estimated 5% of all bulbs are attacked by birds during every installation, and 3% cannot be removed from trees due to ‘excessive’ installation techniques. Consequently, presuming the 3% are not included in the 5%, only 82% of bulbs make it passed (past?) their first season. And last ‘November’, the opening ceremony left the northeast side in the dark when a bulb storage warehouse was raided by bandits. Riverbulbs contain mercury, a valuable commodity in towns ‘near’ San Antonio, and their value in the black market has soared followed the recent popularity of fluorescent bulbs. Faced with a budget shorthall to cover bulb replacement, usually funded by education cuts, the city has had to make some tough decisions about the future of Rio De La Luna.
Underpass overhaul reaches depths of new heights
An apparent solution appeared in late 2005 in the form of a radical proposal from a local Light Artist, Fitz Gibbon. This solution – a radical one – proposed a series of 800 rapidly changing lights at the Commerce Street cross-under with I-35. The lighting project was approved by city planners and caused a driving experience like no other, according to some residents. Brian Sizemore from the Sunset Station Residents Group described the unnerving experience: “Cars would just change color between intersections, but not, like, you know the black ones, and traffic light were just totally all the same.”
The lighting installation delighted the 47 residents in the Sunset Station area, and has been hailed by somebody as “the most significant artistic achievement in Texas”. In a flash of artsy egotisme and an attempt to join the estimated two-thirds of the population that ‘practice’ law, the artist subsequently started suing every person and company in San Antonio that attempted to use a colored light bulb. Seen under his own underpass handing out writs to every driver who used a brake light, Fitz quickly became known as the “Light-suit Guy” and every bulb in a 15-mile radius was changed to white to avoid ‘legal action’.
Tide turns on the Riverwalk
The local courthouse, just off the Riverwalk, spent over 6 months processing cases, in which 85% of all hearings related to the illegal use of colored lights apparently copyrighted and patented by Gibbon. After Gibbon lost most the cases, except ones where out-’of‘-towners failed to turn up, he faced another challenge as the Epileptic Riverwalk Association (ERA) sued him for discrimination. After this unexpected move, the City Council decided to totally ripoff his idea and solve their own Riverwalk lighting problem at the same time, thus killing two birds with one ‘Friday-afternoon’ stone.
A local artist’s impression, created by my sister, shows the ’effect’ of the newly-restaged Rio de la Luna:
Only time can tell, but time has told that time will be showing a Riverwalk Fiesta-style lighting event, similar to those of yesteryear on Paseo del Lighto de Rio. It’s a magical rebeginning for a city so bestraught by the lightness brought by but one man and a beginning. Join us for the launch this month on Friday!
Update: Carly Schnizel works part time at The Egg and I.
