The annual Vivid festival brings out the best in Sydney. Each year, it invites locals and visitors to swim in a sea of dazzling technicolour light, alongside a wider program bursting with thought-provoking seminars, sharp beats and interactive art.
Now in its sixth year, the ever-visible Vivid Light program continues to pull in a whole range of local and international artists. The Vivid concept has even been borrowed by other cities. “It has become the biggest festival in Australia and, in fact, Australian history,” says creative director Ignatius Jones. “It’s gone from 100,000 people to 1.43 million last year.”
In addition to the glittering central hub at Circular Quay, this year will see three new precincts added to Vivid Light: Chatswood, Pyrmont and Central Park. The latter will feature work from street artists Reko Rennie and Beastman, projected onto the heritage-listed brewery facade.
According to Jones, spreading out has been a democratic process. “Vivid is not very tightly curated,” he says. “In many ways, it’s like a big collaboration or a crowd-sourced festival. It’s more about sifting through the people who want to be associated with it. The city will create the core and then the precincts create their own contributions.”
One of the festival’s strengths has also been shining a light on early-to-mid-career artists. “We get fantastic works from established artists but we also get fabulous stuff from students and universities, some of which have Vivid as part of their curriculum.”
Focusing on boundary-pushers and game-changers, one of this year’s most ambitious light works will be projected onto the Museum of Contemporary Art. “We always choose an internationally acclaimed artist to work with an artist from the MCA’s collection,” says Jones. “This year we’re working with Rebecca Baumann, who is quite extraordinary. She doesn’t use the normal tools – she works in things like coloured smoke, streamers and confetti. Interpreting her work has been a challenge for Danny Rose, the Italian-French collective who are animating it and composing a soundscape.”
Although there are three distinct programs, Vivid’s overall philosophy has always been inter-disciplinary. “We call Light, Music and Ideas the three pillars but they do cross-pollinate,” says Jones. “Most of the light installations have some kind of sound component that has been specifically composed. A lot of our light artists speak at Vivid Ideas and we tend to program musicians who have a visual aesthetic to their work. We are not an arts festival as such; we call it a creative industries festival.”
While some commentators have flagged concerns about the environmental impact of Vivid, Jones quickly sums up the festival’s sustainability ethos. “All of our installations use LEDs,” he says. “When we have an installation, we turn off the street lights, which are incandescent in most cases. So we’re actually saving about 90 per cent of the power that would be used to light the city.”
Aside from being an audiovisual feast, Vivid is also a laboratory for developing cutting-edge technology and illustrating scientific precepts. For instance, artist collective Amigo and Amigo has created a large installation for Circular Quay that replicates the inner workings of the brain. Arclight is another project that looks to the future of innovation, set to exhibit at The Rocks. Using complex geometry and experimental techniques, a group of architects and engineers have designed a lightweight, futuristic structure.
“Vivid is where art meets science and technology. It helps the public understand the arts better,” says Jones. “We take the art off the walls and put it on the street. For us, art isn’t something that lives in museums with the other dead things, it’s something that is alive and can be touched and experienced. For us, that’s really important – making art accessible to everyone and not acting as a gatekeeper but as a facilitator.”
Vivid Light as part of Vivid Sydney 2015 onFriday May 22 – Monday June 8 in various locations around Sydney.
