Last night The Todays Art festival started as it happens just outside my front door. As I look over the central station and through the corridor of ministries, city halls and court houses, I was struck at how interesting this festival is at incorporating everyday objects into the celebration.It started with the trains and trams that come and go trhough the station imagine the tracks have been laid out with the equivelent of a music box ribbon... it was quite a noise. Here is more from the artists website.
This performance is not just any performance. It uses instruments, but highly unusual ones; the instruments are trains and trams, bicycle bells and the Central Station-building itself, including all the people present. As a part of the performance, in cooperation with NS (=the Dutch railroad company), a whole range of trains and trams will enter the station in a strict choreography called The Tsunami, with all the train and tram engineers working together. Sounds from travellers will also be amplified through microphones as part of the performance. Achim wollscheid will use computer-driven magnets that play the bicycles in front of the Central Station like a toposonic typewriter.
Then H and I headed down the corridor (check the map for the interactive route) to find a go cart race in progress in front of the ministry of VROM... I'm not kidding for those who get the haha about that one. Onwards we passed the ah grocery store and were forced to weave in and out of large blue triangles laid out on the ground. Their significance to be reveled later,
this is the first time we came across the bunny in the sky, a projection project that ended up following us the entire night through in the form of the artist Pictoplasma on a large bakers bike with projector, generator and laptop in tow.
First came a green house filled with costumes, although I am not sure what the meaning was it was quite funny.
Then the skaters and breakdancer area outside the city hall. Half-pipe, obstical course and a premiere of a skate movie projected on the city hall.
Onwards past other greenhouses with bars and snacks to the main plein Spui where the side of the library and city hall had some amazing projections that transformed the tiles to 3d objects. We saw some modular dresses that could react and change to sound, and found out the blue piramids were for a infared cctv camera that was showing people weaving in and out of the passage way without seeing the blue piramids at all.
We further wandered onto the Grote Markt street which was also part of the Blue Light District where we came accross a van with DJ's for the Langeweiliskeit festival and a bunch of people creating grafitti with tape on the ground.. to be honest I think the Grote Markt Street was the most dissapointing, other than hearing some great music being pumped down the corridor there was nothing else happening all the way till the end and it was filled with the same drunks and drugged kiddies on their way home as you would find on a normal Friday night.
We then made a slight detour to the As If Festival held at the Interfacility which was a student gallery where we walked in on a show that was pretty interesting for about 2 min of sounds and frequencys made from hand-made instruments. I found the multimedia exhibit by Palestiniaan artists far more interesting. The most moving was a young artist who painted all his/her pictures in the bottom of cardboard boxes that were then hung on the wall.. quite moving. This symbolised the mental effect being kept caged can do to a person, even if there is no actual bars the wall that was built was having the same effect on many of the people who had to live with it day in and day out. Quite something and by far the most moving thing I saw all night. It is a conflict that never ceases to amaze and astound me, that the super powers in the world turn a blind eye.. is it beacause there is no oil?
We then went to the Grote Markt and watched a video from a web TV company which was very interesting to say the least. I am trying to remember the name still.
And then back through the street to the Spui where we caught a artist with two giant electricity conductors that lightning lept between the two balls to music.. people loved it!
Back along the corridor to the skaters on the half pipe, past the go carts and home made for a pretty interesting and cultural evening.
