Eindhoven, a city in the
Netherlands, hosts an annual light festival called GLOW. Eindhoven is known as the City of Light,
mainly because of the fact that it housed several match stick factories. And, then Philips established its light bulb
factory.
I was lucky enough
to be in town to experience GLOW 2014.
It was a fabulous experience and some of the installations were
mind-blowing. The city had spent
considerable amount of resources to put this project together. The entire project spanned over 20
installations spread around the city center (Centrum, as they say in
Netherlands).
The installations
were in the form of light installations, sculptures, projections as well as
live performances. Some of the
installations were elaborate and involved high-tech equipment. The entire 'show' started at 6 PM and went on into the night.
One of my favorite
installations was the 'Parklaan Flashback'.
This installation captured the history of Eindhoven at the beginning of
the twentieth century. The show was a
light projection on two buildings facing each other. Spectators stood between the two buildings
and watch the show. The show is
synchronized between the opposite buildings and moves from one building to the
other. Different scenes are depicted and
'painted' on the buildings using light with accompanying music. It made for a spectacular show. I shot both video as well as still images. Here are a few of the still images:
The 'Pendulum Wave' was a piece of art built on the principles of pendulums. This was a great engineering installation with 15 pendulums of varying lengths suspended from a frame. At the end of each pendulum was a lighted ball. All the pendulums were simultaneously raised to the side (I guess, using electro-magnets) and then let go. The pendulums formed interesting patterns governed by their lengths. As the pendulums swung, the balls would change color. The entire experience was enhanced with music and fog.
The 'Figures that
Wander' was a shocker amongst all the exhibits.
This was the only 'live-art' in the whole festival. The performance involved four dancers dancing
behind semi-transparent plastic curtains. They
formed shapes using light and shadows.
Initially, I thought that this was a projection onto a semi-transparent
screen, just like all the other installations.
After watching for a few minutes, I realized that this was indeed live,
and there were people performing behind the screens. This was the most creative, bold and provocative
art installation in the entire festival.
The 'Enchanted
Cathedral and the Seasons' was an innovative art creation using high powered
color projectors. Computer generated
images are projected onto the façade of the cathedral to depict the four
seasons. Again, the animation was
accompanied by lively music.
Here is a view of the cathedral from my room.
'Stereo' was the video
mapping projection done on the façade of the Augustijnenkerk
cathedral. This cathedral was right next
to my hotel and I could see it from my window.
This audio-visual production transformed the cathedral into a living and
moving structure. Set to music, the high
powered projectors painted the façade with features and made the features
undulate to music. It was an interesting
way to convert an irregular surface into a projection surface and paint
pictures.
There was another show inside the cathedral. Even here, they had used a half dozen synchronized projectors to project images onto the tall ceiling as well as the walls of the cathedral. I was surprised to note that each of the projectors was using film instead of digital technology. The entire show was cued to baroque music.
All in all, it was an amazing experience. I heard that other European cities are also hosting such GLOW events and I can't wait to visit them and experience GLOW again.