When the sun goes down, the city glows… with Illuminate Adelaide’s City Lights.
Rug up, hit the pavement and follow the light as Illuminate presents a new program of boundary-pushing local and international artists to reimagine the laneways, street-fronts and open spaces through three key North, East and West precincts.
Free for all ages and running nightly, 15 – 31 July from 6pm to 11pm, head along and explore our beautiful city in a surprising and playful new light.
We’ve gone through the full program and picked some of our favourite events from the City Lights series.
City Lights Adelaide
34×22
34×22 is an audiovisual, site-specific projection mapping piece that consists of 748 rectangular metal plates. Each plate is treated as an independent object, a screen. The artwork revolves around combining two and three-dimensional forms inhibited in rectangular shapes of Rundle Lantern. Their nature and behaviour unfold through space, light, and sound synthesis. This fusion invites the viewer to immerse in geometrical patterns that create space distortions and optical illusions that evoke unknown scapes of digital entanglements.
The work vibrates with minimalist geometrical aesthetics and material honesty.
Bouncing Ideas
From left to right, up or down – thoughts can go in any direction. They can spring up inside your mind or leap from one to the other.
Netherlands based Studio Toer who gave us Firefly Field as part of City Lights in 2021 return with a project that captures the constant flow of ideas by visualising them as glowing orbs bouncing across the lawns of the Brookman Building at the University of South Australia – how appropriate!
Impulse
A glowing series of 15 giant seesaws, Impulse is one of the only City Lights works that must be ridden to come alive.
With the light and sound of Impulse changing when in motion – make these seesaws your instrument in this ever-evolving composition to warm your winter nights. Impulse was first presented as part of Luminothérapie in the Quartier des Spectacles in Montreal.
Futures
Created out of a desire to ignite communal action and hope, FUTURES uses optical illusion, light and sound to take you to a place where we can envision the world that we want.
A 50-metre-long walkway of moving light, soundscapes and mirrors, FUTURES allows audiences to enjoy an immersive space together moving forward whilst also reflecting back, showing us how by taking positive action together, we can create a great future.
Neighbourhood
In large cities, it’s common not to know your neighbours. Rebuilding this community connection lies at the heart Sergey Kim’s work Neighborhood, using the simple gesture of stringing illuminated laundry from one building to another. A globally recognised image filled with culturally and ethnic mixed items from the city’s residents, Neighborhood is a positive portrait of people’s harmonious coexistence.
Neon GeomeTrees
Artist Carla O’Brien had audiences joyously interacting with her work Neon Angel Wings, Neon Dog Park and Neon Hearts in 2021. For 2022, she adds another level of interactivity amongst the trees on North Terrace!
Mathematically calculated to each tree’s dimensions, 2D and 3D neon geometric shapes will intermingle with the tree trunks and branches as if seemingly suspended in mid air, shining a new light on the city’s north precinct.
Submergence
Using thousands of individual points of suspended light, Submergence is an all-encompassing walkthrough experience. Vividly presenting how virtual and physical worlds collide, immerse yourself in this hybrid, atmospheric environment.
A Mirrored City
From afar you see a dance of light up windows, sparkling against the buildings. But up close, you discover what’s inside…
Using dichroic film and light to create a shimmering city scape, walk amongst A Mirrored City to discover a series of dioramas and soundscapes by Steve Francis. It’s a reflection of the city of Adelaide; celebrating the joys, icons and reasons that we love where we live.
The Pool
Merging the movements of individuals to create an overlapping and everchanging collage of light, The Pool is a giant field of concentric circles that swirl with colour when activated by touch. Inspired by Australian tidal rock pools, The Pool uses cutting edge mesh-network technology and custom code to bring this vivid and ever-changing composition to life.
Halo
Ever wanted to be an impromptu composer? A magical and ethereal environment designed for the curious at heart, Halo invites you to wander/wonder amongst a world of interlinked neon, colour and sound. Designed for the creation of music without the technical know-how, enjoy an immediately satisfying creative experience either alone, shared with strangers, or in conversation with the sculpture’s onboard AI.
Neon Winter
Carla O’Brien’s Neon Winter light art installations are bright enough to liven up even the greyest of Adelaide’s day and nights during Illuminate Adelaide.
Vibrant and glowing bright at night, these touchable works are created with LED Neon Flex – a revolutionary new replacement for glass neon giving you an immersive 3D multicolour experience. Take a selfie with a cute Big or Baby Penguin, ‘wear’ a pair of oversized Neon Mittens or give a Big Neon Snowman a hug.
For the map of the full City Lights program of events:
