Lumiere London – A Photo Safari

We now have the answer to what it takes to get thousands of Londoners off the sofa on four freezing January nights and swarm through the streets of our wonderful city for hours on end, even causing the evacuation of a tube station due to overcrowding:

Lights! Art! LUMIERE LONDON!

The first festival of its kind in London, produced by Artichoke, saw some of the most exciting artists working with light transforming King’s Cross and the West End into a fairyland for adults and children alike. Seeing the numbers of people giving up a cosy night in, to experience what was on offer, shows how important art is to us Londoners.

The following photos (click on the images to see them in full size) show a selection of the installations; sadly we did not get around to see all of them. Others looked good when you where standing in front of them but didn’t look so great as a photo.

King’s Cross

IFO – Identified Flying Object by Jaques Rival

A permanent fixture in King’s Cross with its swing and pretty illuminations at night.

Light Graffiti – Floating Pictures

Interactive artwork enjoyed by ‘artists’ big and small.

Litre of Light by Mick Stephenson, Central Saint Martins’ Students & Myshelter Foundation

An installation highlighting a simple technology that is providing sustainable lighting solutions for communities across the world. And a beautiful work to boot using not much more than empty plastic bottles.

Circus of Light by Ocubo

Animated circus projected onto the Granary building. Endearingly bonkers.

Trafalgar Square & Westminster

Neon Dogs by Deepa Man-Kler

Balloon-dog inspired poodles, bones and dog doo-doos in the colours of the rainbow. This installation was first shown at Lumiere Derry-Londonderry.

Plastic Islands by Luzinterruptus

One of the fountains in Trafalgar Square got a make-over drawing your attention to what we are doing to the environment and was inspired by the marine litter that has accumulated in the North Pacific Ocean.

Centre Point Lights

The original lights from the top of the Centre Point building, which is at the moment undergoing extensive reconstruction.

The Light of the Spirit by Patrice Warrener

Westminster Abbey as we have never seen before. As beautiful as a stained glass window.

Piccadilly, Regent St, St. James’s

Garden of Light by TILT

Leicester Square was transformed into a magical garden with giant flowers and trees dripping with neon. Very Alice in Wonderland.

Les Luminéoles by Porté par le vent

This display of colour-changing fish in Piccadilly was first shown at the Fete Lumiere in Lyon and is very hypnotic to watch, especially with the accompanying music.

Eléphantastic by Top‘la Design/Catherine Garret

You could hear this installation before you could see it with the elephant trumpeting away. Very realistic (especially as you could see the elephant’s bum from the other side!)

195 Piccadilly by NOVAK

Projected onto the BAFTA building, showing highlights from its archive with specially commissioned music from Ed Carter.

Les Voyageurs (The Travellers) by Cédric Le Borgne

Walking down Jermyn Street we saw the first of the twelve figures sitting on roof tops and floating through the air. Even more were dotted around St. James’s Square.

Keyframes by Groupe LAPS/Thomas Veyssiere

Stickmen free-running and dancing down the facade of Liberty House in Regent Street accompanied by techno and house music. This was definitely worth a longer stop.

1.8 London by Janet Echelman/Studio Echelman

A good reason to close Oxford Circus for four nights this floating, colour changing installation looked different from every direction. It gave you a crick in the neck, but maybe we should have laid down in the middle of Oxford Circus like some people did.

Mayfair

Aquarium by Benedetto Bufalino & Benoit Deseille

An aquarium inside a red London telephone box. Nothing more, nothing less and very popular with the visitors.

Brothers and Sisters by Ron Haseldon

Neon faces planted in Grosvenor Square, one big happy family based on drawings by school children from the Isle of Dogs, London.

Spinning Night in Living Colour by Elaine Buckholtz

Another light and music installation in Grosvenor Square. Van Gogh’s painting ‘All Night Café’ was sampled like a spinning record and transformed into a series of moving lines of the original colours. The sound score by Floor van de Velde and Elaine Buckholtz is based on a slowed down version of Bela Bartok’s ‘Romanian Fol Dance No. 3’.