Lumiere 2: Let there be more light!

[shewhomust]

After the disappointments of the early evening, the giant snowdome in the Market Place was a welcome blast of pure fun: I liked the way Neptune was silhouetted against the royal blue of the dome, as if about to burst its bubble with his trident, and I liked the snow, so much more conveniently contained than the real thing. I was less sure about the neon message on the plinth, and not just from incipient neon fatigue: yes, I understand that the message 'I love Durham' was part of the conversion of the statue into a tacky souvenir, but given the passions aroused by that statue over the last couple of years, is it possible to take that message at face value? (The Guardian's reporter managed this, remarking that "Shoppers and workers walk by this statue every day without giving it a second glance. Now, though, they were agog, seeing it as if for the first time" and was corrected at some length in the comments).

Most of the complaints I have read about the event were about the crowds, and the failure of the organisers to anticipate and deal with them. So it's only fair to say that the Market Place was the only point at which we found ourselves in any sort of crowd, and it was, as someone remarked, nothing like the crush on Gala day. That said, we didn't go up to Palace Green: the son et lumière at the Cathedral was wonderful two years ago, but we wanted to see something new.

We had to wait our turn to pass the barrier which was controlling access to Saddler Street, but once through we turned down onto Elvet Bridge, heading for Old Shire Hall, and were taken by surprise by the view along the river:

Kingsgate Bridge had been turned into a waterfall; this was striking and mysterious, like watching a conjuring trick: how did they do that? (the Lumiere website isn't telling). It was definitely water, not light or dry ice - we took the riverside path behind Elvet Riverside, and watched the Prince Bishop party boat sail underneath it, which looked very wet indeed. We weren't able to get onto Kingsgate Bridge for a closer look, because passage was one way against us, and we wished this had been marked on our map: by the time we found out, we weren't prepared to go round again. So it remains a mystery, but I can live with that.

On the way we had passed Martin Creed's Work No. 1086 | Everything Is Going To Be Alright - more neon, splashed across Old Shire Hall. The website explains that "The piece exhibited in Durham emblazons the cliché 'everything is going to be alright' across a building which, presented thus, quickly evokes the ways in which the opposite is the case" This implies that the unlikelihood that everything will be alright is demonstrated in the choice of building: Old Shire Hall, a magnificent pile which was once the County Council headquarters and is currently the administrative centre of the University. They will shortly be moving out to a new monstrosity at the entrance to the city, and no-one seems to know what will become of Old Shire Hall then. Still, everything will be alright for the University...

On the grass by the Crown Court, lines of turquoise and orange light shift up and down a grid of columns which I can't quite make out. They are transparent, and waver in the breeze, reflecting the lights of passing cars so that they dance across the more regular movement of the lines. The musical accompaniment sounds as if it had set out to be the bass line of Astronomy Domine but become more ambient. It's pleasantly hypnotic. It's called Hartmann Grid, and back home I look this up: "Hartmann Grid, " apparently, "is directly inspired by a German oncologist, Dr. Ernest Hartmann (1915-1992), who believed that humans who spend a lot of time at the point where the lines on the Earth's electromagnetic grid intersect may be more likely to develop certain diseases." Oh, dear...

This was the furthest point of our tour, and we began to think about heading home, retracing our steps past Elvet Riverside (where a neon sign announcing that 'the future will be confusing' had not been illuminated - that's subtle). At Magdalen Steps we realised that despite the one way system, there was nothing to stop us cutting up into Saddler Street, where two of David Batchelor's assemblies of brilliantly illuminated rubbish lurked in the vennels: Festival and Pimp Pallets. These were unpretentious fun, and I liked them. Hill Island Brewery had installed themselves in Alington House, offering their punningly titled Lumbiere light ale (and their Dark Thai),

I won't say whether the beer or the chance to sit down was more welcome, but when we left them we felt sufficiently revived that when we saw lights in the College, we tried to get in to look but were turned away. The route from Palace Green through the Cathedral and out into the Bailey was market as one way on our map, so we weren't surprised, but I was a bit frustrated that the only way to get into an area which was not, as we walked past, particularly crowded would have been to increase the congestion at its greatest. But I didn't sulk for long, because we were just coming to the best bit, the installation that really did use lighted figures to turn the city street into something magical:

I was quite enchanted by Cédric LeBorgne's Voyageurs; I took a ridiculous number of pictures of them. Eleven figures - but we didn't know that at first, we looked up and saw a figure of illuminated mesh floating in the sky above us, and then another further down the street. By the time we were beneath it, we could see, further on and even higher up, another one sitting on the roof next to the chimney stack, then another... Some drifted in the night sky, some were seated, casting their light on nearby walls or branches, leading us down the Bailey until we passed through the archway below one last figure standing sentinel on the wall, and came down to Prebends' Bridge.

The Guardian thought "Deadgood Studio's Rainbow on Prebends bridge was a huge disappointment, being merely a series of coloured lights" One of the comments suggested that this was a technical hitch, and that the installation should have been much more elaborate - but I liked its simplicity, the way that the fabric walls caught the sequence of colours and created a rainbow tunnel (and presumably made a virtue of the scaffolding which has been hiding the structure of the bridge during repairs). And from here it was a short walk home.

The publicity makes much of the fact that Luniere 2011 is more than twice as big as Luniere 2009: but it wasn't twice as much fun - though it was drier, which may help explain why the number of visitors was so much greater. It's my constant lament that an event will be counted a failure unless it is more crowded than I find comfortable, but this time I'm not alone in finding the crowds (and the crowd management) a major bar to enjoyment. Our plans for the rest of the weekend meant we were doing as the organisers advised, and visited at a relatively quiet time at the very beginning of the festival, so perhaps we hit more than our share of teething troubles - I don't know, I can only report what I saw (and didn't see) - but I'd have settled for fewer items and more of them functioning properly. Some of the artworks would have had more impact, too, if there'd been less repetition. By pure luck we had saved the best till last, and came away happy, but we didn't feel the need to go out again the following night and try to see the things we had missed.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

This post had so much to click on that I saved it for a time when i could give it the proper attention. And what better time than the eve before our departure to the UK?

Okay, maybe the eve before our arrival into Durham would have been better. But still. EXCITED. ;-D

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wondered how this Durham-centred post had failed to snag your interest, and assumed that you were VERY BUSY...

See you soon!