lighting up the night.
With chilly August evenings upon us again Wellington LUX is back! LUX is Wellington's annual outdoor light festival featuring light-based artwork from 36 different artists and art collectives.
We attended LUX last year and throughly enjoyed the show. This year's event was significantly more crowded and we found it a bit difficult to truly enjoy some of the art over the throngs of people.
Most of the installations are placed along the waterfront, starting at Te Papa and traveling the length of the wharf to down near the Portrait Gallery. For the past two years, however, our favourite pieces have resided in the alley way of Opera House Lane and continuing across Manners onto Eva/Leeds Street.
One of this year's highlights was Rube, a white and black graffiti piece tucked behind Opera House Lane. As an audience gathered, spray-paint came to life via digital projection and sound. Animated water poured down into various vessels, a snake slithered, and a light switched on, illuminating the entire scene. It was brilliantly executed.
Perhaps the most awe-inspiring piece of the year was AURA an interactive piece by Phillips Design. Placed in a shipping crate open from both sides, AURA invites audience members to step up and interact with a free-standing lamp-like structure that controls a glowing wall-mounted circle. As participants "play" the lamp the colour of the circle changes as does ambient sounds. It's captivating to play with AURA, but it is even more fascinating to watch others interact with the piece.
There were heaps more pieces to be explored, from lights to help developing nations, to clever 3D zoetropes, to holograms projected in the ocean. It would be impossible to describe them all so I will let my photos tell the story.
We attended LUX last year and throughly enjoyed the show. This year's event was significantly more crowded and we found it a bit difficult to truly enjoy some of the art over the throngs of people.
Most of the installations are placed along the waterfront, starting at Te Papa and traveling the length of the wharf to down near the Portrait Gallery. For the past two years, however, our favourite pieces have resided in the alley way of Opera House Lane and continuing across Manners onto Eva/Leeds Street.
One of this year's highlights was Rube, a white and black graffiti piece tucked behind Opera House Lane. As an audience gathered, spray-paint came to life via digital projection and sound. Animated water poured down into various vessels, a snake slithered, and a light switched on, illuminating the entire scene. It was brilliantly executed.
Perhaps the most awe-inspiring piece of the year was AURA an interactive piece by Phillips Design. Placed in a shipping crate open from both sides, AURA invites audience members to step up and interact with a free-standing lamp-like structure that controls a glowing wall-mounted circle. As participants "play" the lamp the colour of the circle changes as does ambient sounds. It's captivating to play with AURA, but it is even more fascinating to watch others interact with the piece.
There were heaps more pieces to be explored, from lights to help developing nations, to clever 3D zoetropes, to holograms projected in the ocean. It would be impossible to describe them all so I will let my photos tell the story.
