Essen Light Festival 2022 leans on projections and led-lights’ limitless colour scheme.
Essen Light Festival is what I’d call a high street festival. Obviously, the route follows the main shopping street, and there is something for everyone. The pro of this style is that the route is easy to follow by just checking the map once and following others. The con is that the route is quite light-polluted and busy and gives no peace to immerse in the artworks. Usually there is no artistic coherency, either. But there might be a late night shopping event to compensate that.
There was no certain theme in Essen, either. The artworks were mainly varying style of projections, easy on the eye, and light-artworks based on or decorated with bright and/or ever changing colours. One thing that was paid attention to, was the use of electricity in the circumstances of today. This is a discussion that’s unavoidable concerning light festivals. I’m biased, of course, but it seems to me that most of the time the cancelling of festivals is a panic reaction for publicity reasons, which helps just a little or nothing at all. As was said in the Essen Light Festival brochure: "You use more electricity if you stay home". Well put.
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| The halos were planned for people of various heights. Appreciated! |
Angels of Freedom by Merav Eitan and Gaston Zahr is an artwork I’ve been using as an example of simple and practical interactivity in my light art lectures. It was pretty nice to see it live, and in frequent use – everybody seems to want a halo! Also, it’s one of the insta-friendliest artworks I’ve seen. Even I was tempted, I admit, despite the fact that I hate insta-friendliness.
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| The face in its simple phase |
Quite often I wonder why projection mapping artworks art stuffed with everything and its cousin, instead of studying one idea at a time. Or, at least, less than ten. The same goes with Radu Ignat’s Facelessmen. The work includes pretty interesting concept and ideas – I especially enjoyed the play with different faces – but also some technical show-off that diminished its distinctiveness.
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| The first elephant in the festival |
Stephane Masson, on the other hand, did concentrate on one thing, that being unexpected things in a cage in his I Caught a... I love the idea and the simple everyday magic in its realisation, even though I doubt the necessity of the blinking light strips of the cage. Then again, the artwork was in a busy corner, maybe it needed some bling to compete with the environment.
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| The second elephant in the festival |
Bibi is probably the most adorable light artist I’ve seen (via Zoom, but still), and so are his artworks, usually huge and colorful lego-like animals, made of recycled plastic cans. Like Eléphant Rouge. Especially when seen live. His works are so simple and untroubled that I just can’t but like them. Usually, I wouldn’t be too happy about the view from my hotel room being an elephant’s ass, but in this case, I didn’t complain.
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| My Room with the View |
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| Children's drawings are a big hit in this season. Here's the Essen version, Imagine by Daniel and Carina Kurniczak. |
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