For my birthday I decided to spend the day and night working, with a small space in the evening for "celebration". You must have heard of the annual light festival in Amsterdam if you've come here in the winter. The canal cruises offer an hour long ride through the exhibition. Little did I know the best part would be the soothing voice of the guide.
For a moment, imagine nothing around you is real.
The tables, the boat, the people around you, nothing is real.
In fact, imagine you are in a different plane, with a VR headset and full contact body suit. This, all of this, is a simulation.
Now, imagine you have caught a glitch in the simulation. The circle in front of you is set in day time...but we are at night, after the sun has set. It is an escape from the simulation.
These words from the guide are still stuck in my head. I did really wish this was all a simulation and I could, in fact, escape from it. Although it was a take on deciphering this particular exhibition, I really, really wanted it to be true.
This artwork was in the dead center of the light show and after it passed I had pretty much disconnected from the entire exhibition. It is my birthday, and I really hoped I was back in Ukraine. There was no war, it was the holiday season, I was surrounded by friends celebrating, there was enough ample light and heating to go around, no deaths, just a jolly good time. I really hoped this shitshow was just a glitch in the simulation. Alas, too good to be true.
Amsterdam was in full celebration mode. But when is it not, amirite? The entire city was as awake as it gets. Bustling with people preparing for the holidays. Beautiful lights decorating the isles. To me, it was a gentle nudge away from the crushing weight of the reality I and many other from Ukraine live with.
It was a cold night, but the coldest had just passed. It was more chilly than cold. The air was filled with a cold and wet mist, and the bright lights from all the decorations made it a mesmerizing view.
The first article of the exhibition was a light gate. Since it was cold and rainy, the boat had a roof attached to it. It limited the vision and probably put a cap on how much the show could truly be appreciated. The gate is installed on a floating platform anchored to the bed. The piece was made with flexible wires, hundreds of them, and lit by 4 individual lights the bounced against the wires to create a three dimensional visual effect.
This was the 11th edition of the light festival, and the artworks were selected through a competition. This particularly subtle work was made using the help of UV lights and strings. It was placed on both sides of the canal. If not clearly mentioned, this article can easily go unnoticed.
"Flying with light" was one of the artworks I found the most pleasant. As the name suggested, the artwork did move like wings like they were flying. The thin material was lit with blue lights and they moved in waves as the wind went past them. If I rememeber correctly, this was done by a Taiwanese group, and also took inspiration from magpies.
It was very interesting to see all the bridges, which Amsterdam has so many of, are modified by foreign designers. Bringing in their ideas of upgrading the bridges. One of them was a bridge that is almost breaking down, in fact, it is installed with equipments to measure daily effects on the bridge. The artist installed an artwork that looked like a "scanner" on the bridge. Toying with the fact that the bridge is always being scanned.
Throughtout the ride I saw a lot of articles. Many took a very abstract approach to life and time, all brought to reality with the help of light and playing with it. If I had to choose one, it would have be between the "Thousand dreams" or the "Light paddles". The Thousand Dreams was a huge amount of short sticks hanging from the bottom of a bridge and tiny artwork painted on the sticks with neon paint. Light Paddle (unofficial name I gave it since I don't rememeber the original name) was a series of colorful vinyl paddles. At night it was lit with multicolored lights, and at day it shined in the sun.
There is no cake for this birthday. No candle. Just a Kunafa. An Arabic dessert made from cheese and sugar syrup. I did not celebrate my birthday in the way I wanted, but it was a celebration nevertheless. In a poetic way, the Kunafa, my birthday cake, also came a little burnt.
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