I made my first visit to Vivid Light Festival for this year last night – a Monday night, and it was crowded, as it always is, but not too crowded. I started off at Circular Quay and soon made my way around to Campbell Cove to photograph the lights on the Opera House and then under the Harbour Bridge to Walsh Bay and back. So I did not see a lot of installations, so will need to make a return visit or two.
It must be hard for the visual artist to come up with fresh and interesting ideas for iconic locations such as the Opera House. The patterns need to be appealing and also fit on the sails of the Opera House in a meaningful way. I think this year they did a very good job. Many of the patterns featured aboriginal motifs. As well there were animated lizards and snakes wandering around the sails.
At Walsh Bay, things were relatively quiet in terms on people numbers. The installations I thought were mainly very good. A lot of them were interactive.
I had to queue for the first one after the Bridge – the Infinity Box. This was a room you went into and inside there was a mirror maze. It was short, but looks infinitely big! Very well done.
A lit up figure was whizzing around on a lit up and powered skate board. I assume this was a roving installation?
After returning from Walsh Bay, I set up my tripod outside the Museum of Contemporary Art and photographed the sequence on its wall. This also was very well done – with a tiered structure being projected and then brightly coloured paint being tipped over it. The paint slowly dripped down the tiers, down stairs and off balconies. Then a different colour would be added. Next the paint would dry and then the whole layer would be torn off in strips. Quite fascinating.
I made a short journey up to the Rocks, but later looking at the map, I missed lot and will have to return. I also missed close to the Opera House and the Botanic Gardens. A good excuse to return. Here are some more photos –
More photos from this visit are online on my website here.
