According to Vocabulary.com’s dictionary “Vivid is an adjective that describes a bold and bright color, an intense feeling, or an image in your mind that is so clear you can almost touch it.
Sometimes you have a vivid dream that feels so real that even when you wake up, you can’t tell if the dream is really over. In that dream, perhaps there were flowers with deep, rich, and vivid colors that looked like they were painted. Vivid comes from the Latin vivere, which means ‘to live’, and vivid memories do seem to live on.”
Recently Danita and I attended the Sydney Vivid event and it fully matches up to that definition.
One of the benefits we’re enjoying of housesitting so close to the centre of Chatswood is that everything’s so close.
To get into the city is a 10 minute walk to the railway station, which is well serviced by regular trains (no matter what the press want you to believe) and a 20 minute train trip.
So, one evening, on the spur of the moment, we decided to go into the city and check out the recent festival of art and light held in the Sydney CBD.
It was well worth it.
The highlights for us (pun fully intended) were the Museum of Contemporary Art (locally known as the MCA) and Customs House.
We hadn’t heard much about the shows and really had no expectations.
We’d been to a previous one which had been held on an anniversary associated with one of NSW’s earliest governors, Lachlan Macquarie.
It told the story of his life by displaying documents and other images on buildings he’d created, like Parliament House in Macquarie St (guess where that street got it’s name from).
It was a fascinating, entertaining and moving exhibition which we both thoroughly enjoyed.
This year’s was light-years ahead, in all senses of the word.
While the earlier one was largely static images, the main presentations in this one were moving in the most fascinating ways.
The entire fronts of the MCA and Customs House buildings were transformed into moving objects.
We started from Circular Quay station then went to the International Terminal for a view recommended by Margaret Scott, via the MCA.
(Margaret has developed an app called Views On Top for where the best places are around the world, and so it was worthwhile listening to her opinion.)
Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
I found the MCA very ‘trippy’ as it moved into different shapes, at one point it even looked round.
It turned into a giant Tetris game and then reverted to a building with the windows seeming to move in and out.
You could stand for a very long time and just enjoy the experience.
Thankfully, Sydney’s autumn weather was just perfect – cool and crisp but not icy.
Opera House
The Opera House was interesting but not mindblowing like the MCA and Customs House. From our vantage point we did notice that a band of light changed colour as it moved across the whole Harbourside area and the CBD – that was cool.
From there we went to Customs House, again via the MCA.
This time we visited an exhibition alongside the MCA where people would stand in front of a moving image and their outlines became incorporated into the display.
As they moved the main lightshow would change with them.
Then on to Customs House.
That was an experience not to be missed (sorry if you did miss it).
Like the MCA the entire building transformed but in this case it told a story.
My take on the story was something like this:
Firstly we’re watching a fish tank – a bit like the old screen saver which was popular a few years ago.
Into this tranquil scene comes a shark, which doing the natural shark thing was chasing and eating the other occupants of the tank.
Soon the shark rushes at the tank wall and smashes through – demolishing the entire ‘building’ in the process.
Following that giant plants cover the entire wall of the facade, growing through cracks and soon engulfing the building – something of a post apocalyptic take over by the plant kingdom (reminiscent of ancient temples which have been swallowed up by the jungle).
Eventually, giant insects start crawling all over the vines and flowers.
And so the story continued.
Don’t Miss Next Year’s
If you made it to this year’s Vivid Sydney you’ll definitely have it in your calendar for next year.
If you didn’t get to this one, put it into your calendar RIGHT NOW and make sure you never make that mistake again.
It’s held in May-June every year since 2012.
Intriguingly, it began as a Smart light festival for energy efficiency.
Acknowledgements
I’ve included a sample of scenes from what we saw (I didn’t take any – they are from Wikipedia and an article by Campbell Simpson in Gizmodo).