Lumiere part 1: Brighter later
Nov. 20th, 2011 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustLumiere time in Durham: a four night-long event which places light-related sculptures, installations and random neon signs around the city. The organisers play up the festival aspect, and don't talk about Art, so I'm trying to do likewise, though I can't think of a better term to encompass everything from a giant Anglepoise lamp to son et lumière at the Cathedral. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and I went out on Thursday evening to look round:
We set off just after six (lighting-up time) and headed up to the station for that Anglepoise lamp. What can I say? It was an Anglepoise lamp, which ought not have been a disappointment; and it was in the waiting room (likewise) and it was big. Though not too big to fit into the waiting room. Oh, well.
We took the steps up behind the station into Wharton Park: possibly this was not the intended route (the map provided shows locations, but doesn't suggest any route between them: we felt the lack of this later) to Led's Dance (on the Lumiere website), where the arena in the park had been turned into a disco dancefloor, complete with music, lighting - some people had found their way onto the floor and were dancing, too, though we couldn't see how they had got there. But of course we couldn't, it was completely dark in the park, no light but the artwork, so that you approached it blind (or, in our case, by the restricted light of a very useful torch), despite the rough paths, uneven steps and sheer drops of this hilltop path. I was very uneasy indeed about this location, and was glad to get back down to the station.
I'd been sorry to miss the highlighting of the viaduct arches at Lumiere's previous outing, in 2009, and was keen not to miss it again - but miss it we did, because it wasn't on when we came down to the North Road. The projections on the Bethel chapel were pretty, and we stood and watched them for a while. We were underwhelmed by the neon message on the old Miners' Hall (on the Lumiere website): "Capitalism Kills [Love]" with the last word flashing on and off - yes, and? In the mining industry, we said, none of your fancy abstractions, capitalism kills; And Whatever happened to the 'Iconic site' sign from the Stephenson works? we said, and anyway "Don't mourn, organise!" So argumentative, so early in the evening: it's not a good sign. We cheered up a bit at Daan Roosegaarde's Liquid Space in the Gates shopping Centre:
It looked like something that a particularly ambitious entertainer might have made out of balloons for a children's party, but it reflected cheerfully in the glass roof, and there beyond it was the Castle shining all the colours of the rainbow: this may have been the installation below the Castle shining up; we never got there to find out, but instead we headed along the riverside, agreeing that this was the best we'd seen so far. Helvetictoc (on the Lumiere website) told us it was 'about half past seven': as a clock it was a cute piece of artwork, but as an artwork - it's just a clock. Anyway, saiddurham_rambler, he'd seen that long ago as a software routine... Binary Waves (the series of LED panels which had cause our parking space for the pool that morning to be so restricted (on the Lumiere website) presented their best side to the derelict ice rink across the river, but we weren't impressed by what we saw from Pennyferry Bridge - which was itself supposed to be illuminated, but wasn't perceptibly so. From here we could also see Claire Morgan's A New Moon (on the Lumiere website), a giant electric light bulb ("Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb").
Let me say this now, and get it out of the way: neon slogans? Got that. Monochrome patterns on blank walls? Got that. Outsize domestic objects? Got that, too. I don't think the organisers of Lumiere did their contributing artists any favours by overexposing these popular motifs: once might have been fresh and provocative, but repetion dulled their edge.
And so on to the contribution of Tracey Emin: a neon sign reading "Be faithful to your dreams" according to the documentation; it wasn't switched on, and the security guard didn't know why (he couldn't get anyone to answer the phone, he said), so we shall never know whether actually seeing her work in the flesh would have converted me (but see remarks about neon signs, above).
Heading back into the city by Millennium Place, we called in at the Hub (the information centre squatting in the space so recently and reluctantly vacated by the Tourist Information Centre) and picked up a copy of the information leaflet, an essential supplement to the map we had downloaded from the web. Despite this, we managed not to notice LightWriting (which, from the description on the Lumiere website was one of the very few pieces actually created for this event); but it did enable us to identify the projections on the library wall (60 Second CathedraL, and despite the explanation here, and easy-on-the-eye pattern of bodies in free fall). More interesting were the glowing fishes bobbing around the square at eye level, carried by the lingering participants in the opening lantern parade: no pictures yet, but keep an eye on the Lantern Company's website - another one to add to the list of things I was sorry to have missed, and doubly annoyed that we hadn't headed straight into town instead of up to Wharton Park.
Next stop: the Market Place...
Update: Driving out of town at 5.30 on Sunday, we just caught a glimpse of the coloured light bathing the underside of the Viaduct. Pretty, and would have made it an inviting entrance point, if we'd seen it at the start of our explanation. There was also something bright up in Wharton Park: I don't know whether it was there on Friday and we missed it because we entered the park at a different point, or whether someone had found some additional lighting.
durham_rambler and I went out on Thursday evening to look round:We set off just after six (lighting-up time) and headed up to the station for that Anglepoise lamp. What can I say? It was an Anglepoise lamp, which ought not have been a disappointment; and it was in the waiting room (likewise) and it was big. Though not too big to fit into the waiting room. Oh, well.
We took the steps up behind the station into Wharton Park: possibly this was not the intended route (the map provided shows locations, but doesn't suggest any route between them: we felt the lack of this later) to Led's Dance (on the Lumiere website), where the arena in the park had been turned into a disco dancefloor, complete with music, lighting - some people had found their way onto the floor and were dancing, too, though we couldn't see how they had got there. But of course we couldn't, it was completely dark in the park, no light but the artwork, so that you approached it blind (or, in our case, by the restricted light of a very useful torch), despite the rough paths, uneven steps and sheer drops of this hilltop path. I was very uneasy indeed about this location, and was glad to get back down to the station.
I'd been sorry to miss the highlighting of the viaduct arches at Lumiere's previous outing, in 2009, and was keen not to miss it again - but miss it we did, because it wasn't on when we came down to the North Road. The projections on the Bethel chapel were pretty, and we stood and watched them for a while. We were underwhelmed by the neon message on the old Miners' Hall (on the Lumiere website): "Capitalism Kills [Love]" with the last word flashing on and off - yes, and? In the mining industry, we said, none of your fancy abstractions, capitalism kills; And Whatever happened to the 'Iconic site' sign from the Stephenson works? we said, and anyway "Don't mourn, organise!" So argumentative, so early in the evening: it's not a good sign. We cheered up a bit at Daan Roosegaarde's Liquid Space in the Gates shopping Centre:
It looked like something that a particularly ambitious entertainer might have made out of balloons for a children's party, but it reflected cheerfully in the glass roof, and there beyond it was the Castle shining all the colours of the rainbow: this may have been the installation below the Castle shining up; we never got there to find out, but instead we headed along the riverside, agreeing that this was the best we'd seen so far. Helvetictoc (on the Lumiere website) told us it was 'about half past seven': as a clock it was a cute piece of artwork, but as an artwork - it's just a clock. Anyway, said
durham_rambler, he'd seen that long ago as a software routine... Binary Waves (the series of LED panels which had cause our parking space for the pool that morning to be so restricted (on the Lumiere website) presented their best side to the derelict ice rink across the river, but we weren't impressed by what we saw from Pennyferry Bridge - which was itself supposed to be illuminated, but wasn't perceptibly so. From here we could also see Claire Morgan's A New Moon (on the Lumiere website), a giant electric light bulb ("Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb").Let me say this now, and get it out of the way: neon slogans? Got that. Monochrome patterns on blank walls? Got that. Outsize domestic objects? Got that, too. I don't think the organisers of Lumiere did their contributing artists any favours by overexposing these popular motifs: once might have been fresh and provocative, but repetion dulled their edge.
And so on to the contribution of Tracey Emin: a neon sign reading "Be faithful to your dreams" according to the documentation; it wasn't switched on, and the security guard didn't know why (he couldn't get anyone to answer the phone, he said), so we shall never know whether actually seeing her work in the flesh would have converted me (but see remarks about neon signs, above).
Heading back into the city by Millennium Place, we called in at the Hub (the information centre squatting in the space so recently and reluctantly vacated by the Tourist Information Centre) and picked up a copy of the information leaflet, an essential supplement to the map we had downloaded from the web. Despite this, we managed not to notice LightWriting (which, from the description on the Lumiere website was one of the very few pieces actually created for this event); but it did enable us to identify the projections on the library wall (60 Second CathedraL, and despite the explanation here, and easy-on-the-eye pattern of bodies in free fall). More interesting were the glowing fishes bobbing around the square at eye level, carried by the lingering participants in the opening lantern parade: no pictures yet, but keep an eye on the Lantern Company's website - another one to add to the list of things I was sorry to have missed, and doubly annoyed that we hadn't headed straight into town instead of up to Wharton Park.
Next stop: the Market Place...
Update: Driving out of town at 5.30 on Sunday, we just caught a glimpse of the coloured light bathing the underside of the Viaduct. Pretty, and would have made it an inviting entrance point, if we'd seen it at the start of our explanation. There was also something bright up in Wharton Park: I don't know whether it was there on Friday and we missed it because we entered the park at a different point, or whether someone had found some additional lighting.
