mirgraphy

There are still a couple of GBs of photos from last year, but I had to push them aside and start uploading photos from the Sydney Festival. I have been looking forward to this event the moment the brochure landed in my mailbox late last year. Every year the Sydney Festival seems to grow just a little bit more and they do an awesome job at marketing the event. The website is brilliant, I love their timely twitters (@sydney_festival) and I rely on their iPhone app a little too much…

Unfortunately the Festival First Night was rather disappointing, unlike last year’s buzzy atmosphere this year was rather quiet. It could be that the city of Sydney ran out of money after wooing Oprah to our city, but there were not as many acts around. For the life of me I could not understand why they decided to put Arrested Development at Martin Place instead of the Domain.

None the less, there were a number of magical moments, such as the Power Plant at Darling Harbour and Symphony in the Domain – Midsummer Shakespeare that brought Sydney to live.

After raving on about Sydney Festival ofcourse it was the non Sydney Festival installation; Mirazozo that is my favourite.

Mirazozo:

Built in 2010, Mirazozo makes extensive use of an ‘illuminated seam’ feature where luminous seam lines create a scintillating lattice of light.

The pattern of these neon-like strips induce the viewer’s gaze to shift between different perceptions of the same view – an effect one encounters in the contemplative geometric surface design of Islamic art and architecture.

Mirazozo’s center dome is the largest open space structure that Architects of Air has built – one particularly suitable for hosting performances. Mirazozo was conceived to be very modular and to permit compact configurations.

From the outside it resembled a colony of aliens had landed in front of the Opera House and decided to build a futuristic jumping castle. Inside is a different story. The illuminated seams created a multi coloured Tron like world that when combined with the audio was oddly soothing.

Even the ankle biters were  subdued inside the bubble, it could be that they were trying to figure out a way to bounce or slide off the wall before they were whisked away by theirknowing parents.

Mirazozo ends next Thursday, be sure to catch it if you can. Ticket details are here.