One tube stop away from Canada Water or one hop on the Thames Clipper from Greenland Pier or the Hilton - don't miss the opportunity to visit the
Winter Lights festival at Canary Wharf. And it's all free!
I rarely get the opportunity to bang on about modern art on this blog, but thanks to the organizers of the
Winter Lights festival at Canary Wharf, the opportunity has presented itself.
Do you actually have to be interested in art to enjoy the
Winter Lights festival? No, of course not. The whole point is to involve everyone, no matter what their interests. The whole experience is terrific, enjoyable,
fun. I visited on Monday evening and again today with a friend, and the place was full of people of all ages and descriptions thoroughly enjoying the 18 spectacles. On Monday a small minority had vast cameras mounted on tripods (probably from the press) but most on Monday and all on Thursday were clicking with ordinary cameras and camera-phones and everyone was fascinated, with a lot having fun with the interactive installations.
The key to enjoyment is simple - it's completely free of charge, so
print off the map from the Winter Lights website, go when it's dark (which turned out to be 5pm this week), wrap up
warm and take a brolly, because most of it is outdoors. It's probably best to read the online brochure
before you go unless, like me, you are intending to go twice. If you
are only going once and you don't read the brochure you will miss some
of the fun because there are no information boards at the installation and it does help to know how some of them
are supposed to work, particularly the interactive ones. And then simply take some time at each installation to engage with the luminous shapes, the vibrant, fluid colours, and to play with the installations where play is both expected and encouraged. It's lovely. And Canary Wharf at night is a fabulous light-show in it's own right. What's not to enjoy?
If you are going by tube, be aware that Canary Wharf is chaos on the return leg to Surrey Quays on weekdays. I arrived at about 5.15 and left at about 7.30 on Monday and about 6.45 on Thursday. the latter was bedlam, with people queuing to get on the Jubilee Line heading west. I got on the eastbound, hopped off at North Greenwich, where there were no queues, and came back to Canada Water. I'd have taken the Thames Clipper home if I'd realized.
I've described my own take on each of the 18 installations below, accompanied by photographs from my visit on Monday. For those who are interested in the background to the incorporation of artificial light into art, read on for an ultra-short beginner's guide. It's a piece of pure self-indulgence so if you just want to get an idea of what you're likely to see, just skip ahead to the
Winter Lights photographs to see what's on on display at Canary Wharf until the 22nd.
You can click on any of the photographs below to see the bigger image.
Light in Art History
Light is essential to all art, of course. Artists like J.M.W. Turner, whose
Fighting Temeraire depicted a romanticized view of the old Trafalgar veteran
being towed down to Rotherhithe for breaking up used light to create specific moods, ideas and sensations. Only slightly later, the Impressionists consciously exploited light in its various forms as a fundamental belief about the re-interpretation art, often painting outdoors rather than in studios, and capturing a sense of movement, transience and energy through different approaches to lighting scenes and people. Even landscapes and waterscapes, essentially captured like snapshots of time, are imbued with ideas about the immutability of weather effects that contain a sense of endless combinations of shifting clouds, multi-coloured skies, sunshine, dappled light and impermanence. In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, as art exploded in various directions, concepts of light, movement and three-dimensional rendering of images were incorporated into abstract art.
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Naum Gabo's beautiful
"Linear Construction in Space"
1949 |
Widespread electric lighting from the late 19th Century onwards gave rise to new concepts of reality. There was no
longer a dichotomy between the light of day and darkness of light. As
new technologies drove light ever higher and brighter in the form of sky-scrapers,
and the world adjusted to a world defined by a vast new range of
architectural possibilities, light became incorporated into a much
broader range of ideas about art, space and the potential of combining the values of traditional art with the vast multi-faceted possibilities presented by modern architecture.
Possibly the first piece of art that was explicitly designed as an installation that manipulated light to create its impact was László Moholy-Nagy's
Light-Space Modulator, first displayed in 1930. It combined metal and glass, arranged on a circular rotating base, and employed white and coloured light to shift its form and create shadows that extended its reach beyond the purely material. He recognized that light had kinetic properties, that art could actually move, transform and reinvent itself every time it shifted even slightly. Only a little later, the stunningly ethereal and multi-planed sculptures of Constructivist
and Bauhaus member Naum Gabo incorporated ambient lighting into his
designs, exploiting light to define sharp edges and fragile spidery
networks. The works of artists like Moholy-Nagy, Gabo influenced others who also explored the properties of light in their art like
Zdenek Pešánek and
Thomas Wilfred, and photographers
Barbara Morgan and
Andreas Feininger.
These experiments eventually gave rise to highly focussed approaches with 2-D and 3-D imaging, like Op Art, a clearly defined movement that used optical illusions to explored the kinetic relationship between dark and light in painting and sculpture, some of which look remarkably similar to light works - for example
Alberto Biasi. 1960s Pop Art, with its focus on the portrayal of popular culture and commercial appropriation of art, absorbed neon lighting and neon colouring into its 2-dimensional repertoire, but only rarely explored the nature of light as a malleable entity in its own right. However, some Pop Art artists do stand out, including
Billy Apple and
Keith Sonnier, and emerging from Pop Art Paul Scirpa has continued to use 3-D light creations to explore the concept of infinity, drawing viewers into a spatial experience of light, colour and depth, and
producing some remarkable pieces. At the other end of the artistic continuum of the 1960s and 70s was the Conceptual Art movement, which was both self-absorbed and often somewhat reductionist, exploring the nature of art itself, proposing that ideas are more important than objects and often using real-world items to create installations that move art beyond the gallery. Within this broad range of approaches,
Joseph Kosuth and
Stephen Antonakos used artificial light as one of many media to develop their ideas to give conceptual art a similar status to more traditional forms of painting and sculpture.
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"One Hundred Live and Die"
by Bruce Nauman, 1984 |
There has been no movement that has dedicated itself to light as a specific medium, but in the 1960s, some of the artists often described as the
California Light and Space movement explored light as a medium. It has to be said that some of the artists that are lumped into the movement strenuously resisted (and still resist) the attempts to pigeon-hole them into a group or movement of any sort. Still, there's a common theme between many of their works at this time, with an interest in combining light with volume and space, sometimes at significant scales, to create sensory experiences. Sometimes their work was based on natural light, sometimes artificial, sometimes it was contained within objects and at other times it was architectural in its ambition.
James Turrell is the main name associated with the use of light in the group, but others, like
Doug Wheeler and
Bruce Nauman, for example, also spent explored light as a medium. In 2012
a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sand Diego exhibited many of the Californian artists identified with the movement.
Today, artificial light is often incorporated into works of art, or is the subject of the whole concept of a piece or installation. A number of artists exhibiting at the world's top museums are exploring concepts using 3-dimensional light configurations. See, for example, installations at the Centre Georges Pompidou: François Morellet (
who exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, 2011), Bryan McCormack (
whose work was incorporated into the Pompidou Centre's architecture in 2011), Yaacov Agamand (
Rainbow Installation), and Arik Levy (
whose 2006 piece "D-Day: From primitive to virtual" is in the museum's collections). Other well-known and often-exhibited artists are
Dan Flavin,
Hans Kotter,
Mark Handforth and
Eric Staller. In 2001 Martin Creed won the Turner Prize
for The Lights Going On and Off.
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| Light Show, Hayward Gallery, 2013 |
Artificial light continues to be a major feature of modern approaches to art. In 2013
an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London
presented light objects and installations with a view to giving the
public chance to investigate this often unfamiliar medium of
communication. Last year, 2015, was the
International Year of Light and it was good to see that
on their website they talked not only about technology and commerce, but about the artistic value of light as well. Today light installations are becoming increasingly popular and accessible. Some light works are specifically designed to be seen indoors and to be incorporated into museum and gallery displays. Others are intended exclusively for the outdoor environment, sometimes rural, sometimes urban. Outdoor festivals of light are becoming regular features in some cities. Some festivals specialize in projecting images onto buildings, others are stand-alone installations, some are indoors, some outside. Some are to be looked at, some respond to music, others incorporate voices, sound, smoke, and other audio-visual devices. Still others rely on the participation of individuals to make them come to life. Some are intended to provoke serious contemplation; others are fun. Nearly all of them explore the relationship between space, light, motion and people (either as spectators or participants). One website nominated its
10 favourite light installations of all time, a truly vibrant selection.
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Fantastic Planet by Amanda Parer.
(On the map no.18, in Westferry Garden) |
The Winter Lights festival at Canary Wharf 2016
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Nearly all of these installations would have benefited from being captured in video rather than still photographs, because many of them rely on movement to engage with the public, whilst in other cases sound is a major component, and some are interactive, depending on people to make them respond.
The first time I visited, on Monday 11th, I did so without looking at the brochure so that I would respond honestly to the installations, rather than being influenced by the descriptions of what I should be seeing and how I should be reacting. This was quite telling. In some cases I responded in just the way that the artist would have wanted. In other cases I missed the point entirely. For example one installation that was intended to create a feeling of empathy for the downtrodden seemed quite upbeat to me. I always feel that it is is a measure of how successful a piece of art is when the artist and audience arrive at the same conclusion, so whether my failure is down to me or to the artist is endlessly debatable. It didn't matter - the entire experience of
Winter Lights was enjoyable even whether or not I received the intended message! Having said that, if you are only intending to visit once, it would make a lot of sense to read the information brochure
on the Winter Lights website because you will get far more out of the installations if you know what they are designed to do.
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Map from the Winter Lights brochure showing
the location of the installations. |
I've described the Installations in the order in which I visited them, my starting point being the Thames Clipper's Canary Wharf pier. The map in the brochure isn't at all bad, but do note that for 5 and 6 you have to go into the building Crossrail Place building and go down to Lower Level 3 in the elevator (whilst you're there you shouldn't pass up the opportunity of going up to the Roof Garden afterwards - it's brilliant!). The only one I failed to find was 13, and I suspect that it is missing because it should have been fairly easy to find.
This contains spoilers - explanations from the brochure of what each installation is supposed to represent, as well as my own responses to them before and after I had read the brochure. If you want to go and see them without knowing what they are intended to represent, read this after your visit! All the photographs in this section are mine. Where text explaining the pieces is quoted or paraphrased it is from the
Winter Lights brochure. All the comments and opinions about the installations as they appeared to me in Canary wharf are mine.
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Fantastic Planet by Amanda Parer.
(No.18, in Westferry Garden) |
Coming off the Thames Clipper, climbing the stairs and crossing the road to head up West India Avenue towards the iconic One Canada Square tower, you come face to face, quite literally, with "Fantastic Planet" (number 18 on the map) by Amanda Parer. This 18ft high inflated figure is filled with white light. The creation was inspired by the somewhat frightening futuristic film of the same name. It is a marvellous entity to greet you as you arrive, moving gently in the wind and giving the sense of being on the cusp of using its great strength to rise to its full height. The giants in the film were far from benign, keeping humans as pets. Standing in front of him, it is impossible to imagine what he will do when he finally stands. He is a rather fine figure to meet the eyes of visitors climbing the stairs from the quayside and approaching the heart of Canary Wharf.
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"Chorus" by Ray Lee
(No. 17, Columbus Courtyard) |
Next on the map was "Chorus," a set of identical kinetic sculpture by Ray Lee that combines light, motion and sound, in Columbus Courtyard (number 17). Each piece consists of a fairly massive metal tripod on which there is a horizontal metal arm with a red light at each end, and this rotates while musical pitches emerge. To be honest, I just couldn't wrap my head around this one. The arms rotate very slowly, so the light doesn't form any sort of pattern. The photo in the brochure, obviously taken with a very slow shutter speed, suggests great speed, creating a red circle as it spins, like a child with a sparkler, but this is quite wrong. The arms move slowly, the light is a minor part of the impact, and the sound, admittedly absorbing, is not dominant enough to tie the whole lot together in a single integrated experience - at least not for me. I gave it my best shot twice, but couldn't tune into whatever it was trying to convey. Sorry for the fuzzy photos, which don't do it credit! It wasn't working on Thursday.
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"Totem" by Bitone Collective
(Number 16 in Cabot Square). |
My next visit was to number 16, "Totem" by Bitone Collective in Cabot Square (the map shows it in the corner on the north side of the square but it's just inside the entrance to the square, to the south). When I first visited it I didn't know how it was supposed to work and although I loved the pulsing colours, and the arrangement of the lights, next time I visited it was so much more fascinating for knowing that it responds to mobile phone signals in the area surrounding it, becoming brighter and more colourful the more signals are in its immediate vicinity. In a place like Canary Wharf you'd think that it would be permanently on red alert, but in fact it reacts constantly as people move in and out of the square, on or off their phones. It picks up signals whether or not the phone is on a call or just sitting in a pocket, so it is constantly responding, constantly changing. It is a delightful and somewhat gripping piece of art, interacting not with people themselves but with the technology that they depend upon. It's a bit like a barometer or a thermometer, constantly monitoring minor transformations in a single variable. Lovely to watch and, for some reason, a little bit disquieting. Perhaps because it highlights so vividly how dependent we have become on our mobile phone and tablet technology.
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By Nathaniel Rackowe
No.1 at One Canada Square (indoors) |
Installation 1 is, appropriately, inside 1 Canada Square, in the ground floor lobby of the tower block that defines Canary Wharf. "Luminous City" consists of three separate pieces, two on the south side of the lobby by the doors onto South Colonnade, and one to the north ("Black Shed Expanded"). They are all by Nathaniel Rackowe who, the brochure says uses "industrial materials such as fluorescent tubing, breeze blocks and bitumen" to create "large scale installations examining the interplay of light and structure in the built environment." In a sense, it is a distillation of architecture into minimalist basics. The piece that was getting the most attention was the one shown in the photo on the left, which incorporated motion, a horizontal frame of of lights that rose up a vertical frame and then slowly dropped again, descending into the green-lit gulleys between white-painted timber uprights. It moves eternally, and I suppose that it is somewhat reminiscent of Canary Wharf itself with its automatic doors, elevators and lights - something that moves at its own pace, much slower than the mad rush of people that move around it, but never really stopping. The combination of light and motion was attracting people to it in ways that the other two installations by the same artist weren't, which was interesting. It wasn't working on Thursday, which was a shame, because it was doing a great job on Monday.
At the opposite end of the spectrum in this set of three is "Black Shed Expanded," the only
one of the pieces given a title. This pretty much says what it does on
the tin - backlit black-painted panels leaning up against a wall. In
some ways it has more in common with 2-dimensional Cubism than any of
the more explicitly 3-dimensional pieces on display in the festival, capturing something
everyday but giving it such an unfamiliar context. Different from both, but still using the same
fluorescent white and pea-soup green is Rackowe's third piece, which has a real presence in spite of being entirely static,
possibly because of the crazy angle at which it sits, and the open-sided
dark panels that give glimpses into the inner workings. Like it or
loath it, it is certainly arresting and, taken together, there is certainly a feeling of urban architecture about the pieces.
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"Liquid Space 6.1" by Daan Roosegaarde
No.3 at Adams Plaza |
Next on my list was the interactive and wonderfully appealing "Liquid Space 6.1" by Daan Roosegaarde at Adams Plaza, no. 3. The rather unexciting name hides a rather delicious interactive installation that leans towards people as they approach, changes colour when people stand beneath it and shifts even more in shape and reach as they move around and gesture upwards. The colours flow along the cables like liquid, and apart from the big terrestrial feet, the entire thing feels faintly aquatic. People were having huge fun with it, children and adults alike, provoking it to shift and change, to produce new hues, make small small sounds, and generally act like a living thing. The sphere at the apex of its three legs really does seem like a head when it is in action, and although its legs are fixed to the floor it feels as though it could suddenly move off and go exploring. The brochure says that it is made of "springs and plastic tubes interwoven with LEDs, spotlights, speakers and sensors" but if you let your imagination run away with you just a little bit, it really feels like artificial intelligence ready to spring into life, and it is great fun. Sadly, it wasn't working on Thursday (it was a sad little heap of white cables looking rather like a dish of spaghetti), but hopefully it will be fixed in time for the weekend. I was disappointed because I had really wanted my friend to see it.
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Light Sphere 1 by
Tom Wilkinson,
No2 at Adams Plaza |
Its neighbour in Adams Plaza, "Light Sphere 1" by Tom Wilkinson (number 2 on the map) struck me in much the same way as Ray Lee's tripods in Columbus Courtyard. I didn't really get it. The brochure shows swirling circles of colour that define an empty sphere but this is clearly either a result of photography or it was on a go-slow and wasn't spinning as quickly as it should, or it should have been located somewhere much darker. The brochure says that "Light Sphere 1" is intended to "explore the void at quantum level, with reference to the atom and its field of electrons". But the reality, at least on the two occasions when I saw it, doesn't seem to meet up to the brochure's promise. A metal disk rotates vertically on a conical plinth. The disk is dotted with lights at regular intervals, and these change colours, but there is no sense of colours intermingling or light moving to form circles that would define a sphere. It was very difficult to understand what the artist was trying to achieve and I remain to be enlightened, no pun intended.
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"We Could Meet" by Martin Richman
No.3 in the channel at Crossrail Place |
Next to the undulating interactive "Liquid Space 6.1" (number 3) is "We Could Meet" by Martin Richman. This is installed down in water of the long narrow channel that runs along the side of Crossrail Place. An irregular grid of vertical light tubes are arranged in a square. The colours, warm pinks, purples and reds, change slowly, bright and compelling, and producing different responses as they combinations of colours alter the impact of the arrangement. It is really rather hypnotic, and very beautiful. The brochure says that the artist "is interested in how art can improve the quality of life in cities, humanising and helping to give locations a sense of place." A lot of artistic ambitions are terribly pretentious but this one makes sense, because the presence of the feature gives an anchor to the otherwise incredibly confusing jumble of buildings, plazas and walkways, providing an attractive and at times mesmerizing focal point, complemented by the shifting waters in which it sits. People were leaning on the railings staring down, watching it, completely absorbed.
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"A Parallel Image" by Gebhard Sengmuller.
Number 5 at Crossrail Place, Lower Level 3. |
From here, you need to go indoors for the next two installations. There is an entrance into the Crossrail Place building just along the channel from "We Could Meet." You need to go down to Lower Level 3, where there are signposts clearly showing you left out of the elevator and then right, to installations 5 and 6. Number 5, "A Parallel Image" by Gebhard Sengmuller, is at the end of the short corridor, and Number 6, "Moon" by Daniel Iregui is in the room to the left.
"A Parallel Image" consists of two light panels connected by a glorious mass of copper wire. Images are projected onto the first panel and transmitted down the wires to the panel opposite. According to the brochure, every single pixel is transmitted on a separate one of the copper wires, and there are an awful lot of them! Stand at the panel at the far end and gesticulate, and the image will
be transmitted to the other panel for others to see. It's really
effective! Like some of the other installations, the combination of light, motion and vivid colour (in this case the copper wires) is truly fascinating. Its intention is to provide the viewer with a direct experience of how images are communicated, to make the process very nearly transparent. Whether or not you see it like that, it is a shocking time-waster and very lovely.
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"Moon" by Daniel Iregui
No. 5 at Crossrail Place,
Lower Level 3 |
Its neighbour, in a room to the side, was something of a puzzle on Monday because I was quite unable to connect the installation itself with the description in the brochure. As above, the description in the brochure is "Moon" by Daniel Iregui and is described as "an interactive sculpture inspired by the enigmatic nature of lunar light. Through a window a moon is visible floating in the air. By touching the space outside the window the viewer can control the installation's light, creating mysterious visual effects." When I went to see it in a pitch black room there was certainly a square frame and a sense of perspective leading towards a distant point, but no-one was interacting with it and it produced, all on its own, some truly marvellous whispy, smoke-like effects that emerged from the distance and swirled within the frame to create some spellbindingly fluid shapes in space. But there was no indication that interaction would create anything new, and it looked absolutely nothing like the picture in the brochure. So when I went back on Thursday with a friend, I was expecting to interact with it but the experience was entirely different - bizarrely so. Instead of looking into the frame from the front, people were standing behind the frame and gesturing wildly, which created a medley of coloured lines on the opposite wall. The room is pitch dark and the scene refused to be photographed, but it was very strange how on two separate days the experiences were so radically different. The photograph is from my first visit, on Monday.
After you've visited these you can return to the elevator to go back up to the quayside level where you entered. However, a better route to the next installations is via the Roof Garden. I saw it on one of the elevator buttons and went to see what it was, and it is super - a long thin garden of trees and plants along the very top of the building and extending for most of its length, beautifully lit, partly sheltered and partly open. There's a main path leading through the centre, with small winding paths to the sides. It's a permanent feature, and a real treat - particularly because it was so very unexpected. A sort of miniature modernist version of the hot houses at Kew. At the opposite end of the garden, go down two sets of escalators and you pop out at the next installations at the end of the water channel. Here, numbers 7 and 8 are happily side by side.
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"Aura [2014]" by Philips Lighting Design
No.7, Crossrail Place |
No.7 is "Aura [2014]" by Philips Lighting Design, which was a huge success with the public of all ages. As I was approaching, all I could hear was gales of laugher which is always a good sign that something interactive is actually working. People couldn't stop interacting with it! A big white disc is attached to a wall. In front of it is a stand with what looks like a loud-haler with a light at its centre. Take off your gloves (it doesn't work with them) and wave your hand across the the lamp, gently or energetically, and lights and sounds suddenly the white disk springs into life, changing as the user interacts with the light on the stand, harmonizing with the sort of gestures made. It's a dramatic effect, and incredibly engaging. The colours are a riot of different shades, and the sound is suitably strange. The brochure is a bit lame on the subject of a description, but the
Philips Museum website has this description that gives some insight into how it works: "AURA responds to stimuli from the surroundings, such as sound and
movement. The installation works with a webcam that is linked to a
round, sun-shaped lighting fixture and registers color, movement and
sound, which it then reflects in a dynamic way. Thanks to the power of
LED lighting and digital sound, AURA can respond to the situation and
occasion, and change the atmosphere as a result." It works.
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Video still from the Lumen Prize Exhibition
No.8 at Crossrail Place |
Next to it, no.8 is the Lumen Prize Exhibition, a series of digital art projections created by various artists. Standing in front of one and then the other of two large screens under a rather small umbrella whilst the rain cascaded down, I found myself unable to drag myself away, which is surprising as I don't normally have much of an attention span for anything on a screen, television included. The screens showed the results of the short-listed works and winners of the annual competition, which goes on a global tour. It has already been to Shanghai and New York. I assumed that I would be able to find them online, but I couldn't find the ones that I was watching with such enjoyment at Canary Wharf on the
Lumen Prize Exhibition website. If, however, you want to see what it's all about have a look at
this video by winner Scott Draves: "Electric Sheep: a self-perpetuating system for the production of algorithmic art" (the narrative explains what it's all about but if you find it annoying just turn off the volume to enjoy the view). It's at its best when switched to full-screen. I'm working my way through all the videos on the website. The image on the left is a photograph that I took of one of the videos that I stood and enjoyed, and was hoping to re-visit on the website. Unfortunately I didn't take a note of the name of the piece or the artist.
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"bit-fall" by Julius Popp
No.15 at Chancellor Passage in
Middle Dock |
After Nos. 7 and 8, you need to choose a route to take you to the final cluster of installations, 9-15. These are all in the general area of Canary Wharf tube station, two in Middle Dock to the south of the station (14 and 15), four in the Jubilee Park, which lies between the two entrances to the station (10-13), and one lies on the other side of the road from Jubilee park in Montgomery Square (9).
I made my way first to No.15, which is the dramatic "bit.fall" by Julius Popp, which is at the end of Chancellor Passage but is actually suspended over the dock (Middle Dock). It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. The first impression is simply one of words fading in and out from an overhead bar, but when you get close you realize that the effect is being created by water and light combined, the water falling into the dock below and creating an attractive sound to accompany the light effect. It is inspired by live news feeds, of the sort that are transmitted on at least one building in Canary Wharf. The words shown are seemingly random, including Ready, Right, Women, Faces and Arsenal (just the ones I photographed), and according to the brochure "is a metaphor for the incessant flood of information we experience each day, creating a play between technology and its relationship with the natural elements." If all news broadcasts were this enchanting one might never stop watching.
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"Infinity Pools" by Stephen Newby
No.14, in Middle Dock |
No.14, "Infinity Pools" by Stephen Newby, is actually IN Middle Dock and takes a bit of finding because there are only four of them and they are not immediately visible from the quayside - you have to know that they are there and then negotiate tables and chairs to lean over the side of the railings along the dock to view them. If you are at the southern side of the dock go for the blue one because the glass cover of the pink one is covered with condensation. Once you've found it, however, it's really rather interesting. There are five of them in total and although at first glance they seem to be simple discs, when you look more closely they appear to be endlessly descending tunnels of light, falling infinitely downwards.
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"Globoscope" by Collectif Coin
No.11 in Jubilee Park |
I went into the Jubilee Place park from the side, half way between the two tube station entrances, so the first installation I came across was "Globoscope" by Collectif Coin (no.11). Like other installations that respond to an external stimulus of some sort, this generated a lot of interest. Either side of the path white spheres were arranged in well-spaced lines. Speakers issued a series of tones in a form of music, and the globes responded to them. When there was loud music they all lit up bright white, when there was no music they went dark. As the music rose and fell the lights flowed to the music, loosely synchronized. As some of the spheres are installed on a slight rise and others are on the flat, the topography of the park contributes to the patterns and the sense of movement as the sound and light combine with the green grass and the lie of the land to pull the viewer in to the experience. The brochure comments "Mathematics, sound and light are all brought into play to represent, transform and augment the space offering spectators a surreal promenade" and this worked very well, as many people were moving around between the lines of light, getting closer to the patterns as they formed.
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"My Light is Your Light" by Alaa Minawi
No. 10 in Jubilee Park. |
Continue down the path and on the left, "My Light is Your Light . . ." by Alaa Minawi (No.10 in Jubilee Park) was my greatest personal failure. My understanding of it was completely wrong. A series of six figures defined by outlines of white neon white walk in the same direction, bright and bizarrely full of movement, in spite of being completely static. I interpreted this as a family group walking along together at undemonstrative ease with each other. I saw it as some sort of allegory of modern families who manage to be both together and detached from each other at the same time. Which was
completely wrong. I liked it very much and felt at home with it, but here's the description from the brochure: "In today's troubled world
my light is your light . . . was created as an act of solidarity with Syrian refugees. The silhouettes of a family of six hopelessly fleeing a conflict zone have been created in lines of neon light. the radiating glow of sculptures acts as a tribute to all refugees who yearns for their extraordinary stories to be heard." Oh well - you can't win them all! The friend with whom I visited on Thursday likened it to Lowry's matchstick men, which was certainly much closer to the mark.
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"On The Wings of Freedom" by Aether and Hemera
No.13, in Jubilee Park |
One of my favourites for its sheer beauty was "On The Wings of Freedom" by Aether and Hemera (No. 13, also in Jubilee Park), and that's in spite of its name. It was a great winner with other people too, who leaned against the walls of the ornamental pond and watched it go through its paces. The hues were vibrant and striking, the butterflies on their stems (although I confess that I thought that they were flowers) were perfect containers for the light, superbly translucent and glowing with luminous colour. Like "Totem" it apparently responds to mobile phone signals and people should be able to interact with it directly by using their mobiles in its presence, causing it to change its lighting in real time. I didn't know this on Monday but on Thursday we tried it (first sending text messages and then phoning home) and I have to say we couldn't make it do anything that it wasn't already doing. But it was incredibly beautiful, so it really didn't seem to matter.
No.12, "Flawless" by Gonzalo Bascunan and Perrine Vichet was still under construction on Thursday, surrounded by scaffolding and ladders. When it is eventually assembled, the brochure says that its bright, iridescent leaves are intended to invoke thoughts about photosynthesis and to "encourage the viewer to contemplate how essential light is for human well-being, as well as creating a place of fantasy and imagination." The leaves represent elm, a conscious reference to the real tragedies of Dutch Elm Disease, something that has changed the face of the British landscape.
Finally, and a great winner with the public (and me), is no.9, "The Pool" by Jen Lewin Studio in Montgomery Square. This is visually impressive and great fun to play with. It turned the most serious looking adults into children all over again. Consisting of a circle of circular illuminated pads or discs, each disc cycles through different colours of pink and blue, but each turns to rainbow colours when it is stepped on. Some people were moving cautiously from one pad to another, whilst others were running across, creating rainbow paths in their wake. It was irresistible. I slung my camera on my shoulder and found myself hopping from one to another, enjoying the reward of the blaze of colours beneath my feet. When I went with my friend, we were like a pair of kids, leaping from one pad to another and narrowly missing bumping into other people. A co-ordinated effort would probably create some even more amazing patterns. It was fun to do and endlessly entertaining to watch.
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"The Pool" by Jen Lewin
No.9, Montgomery Square |
I loved the
Winter Lights festival. It was food for thought, it was often intriguing, sometimes it was bewildering, it was frequently very beautiful, but most of all it was fun to get out there and experience all the different things that could be done with artificial lighting and a lot of imagination.
It was obvious that those installations that drew most attention were those that interacted either with people, with sound or mobile phone signals. The opportunity to get involved, or to see installations as something other than purely static clearly had enormous appeal. I think that if installations like "Totem" (16,) at Cabot Square and "On the Wings of Freedom" (13) at Jubilee Park, had been more obvious in the way that they responded their environment (both respond to mobile phone signals) they would have been more obviously appealing to people who could have experimented to see if they could influence the lights. It might have helped to have information signs next to them to explain how to interact with them.
Others that worked well were those, like "bit.fall" (15) over Middle Dock and that had a dramatically transitional element built into them. Of course the giant white inflatable man, "Fantastic Planet" (18) at Westferry Garden, had an impact all of its own.
Those that didn't work as well in this very dynamic festival were those that failed to engage directly with the senses. Those pieces might challenge the intellect, but they could have worked just as well in an art gallery. The real strength of the festival as an entity in its own right was the sense of everything being in transition, dynamic, unexpected and in a constant state of flux in an outside setting that is completely unlike any art gallery or museum that one might have visited.
Canary Wharf is a mixed blessing as a setting. In some ways it might be
better to see the installations against a dark background instead of
set against the brilliance of the office buildings, and I do wonder if "Light Sphere I" (2) and "Chorus" (17) failed to make an impact because they needed a dark background to set them off. But at the same
time, the walls of light surrounding all 15 outdoor installations put them in the context that
gave life to them in the first place. A dilemma.
If you're in two minds about it, just go and have a look. If nothing else, it's fun to watch how other people react to the various installations.
One tube stop away from Canada Water or one hop on the Thames Clipper from Greenland Pier or the Hilton - don't miss the opportunity to visit the Winter Lights festival at Canary Wharf. And it's all free!
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