Naked City: Vivid still makes us livid! – The Grumpy Guide, part 2

Naked City: Vivid still makes us livid! – The Grumpy Guide, part 2

 

In 2013 we reflected on five year’s of Sydney’s Vivid Festival. We noted even after a number of high-profile curators like the late Lou Reed and the doggie friendly Laurie Anderson, many people perceive it as a Seinfeld festival –  a festival about nothing!

Six years on and we see nothing to change our mind, as sales of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs soar with the city once again lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. What is it with this obsession we have with illuminating Sydney Harbour? Whether it’s the multi-million dollar New Year’s Eve celebration or those endless projections (yawn, yawn) on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

Surely we can find something more interesting to illuminate than a bunch of ferries and tourist boats – Hong Kong has been doing this for decades and Shanghai has a nightly laser extravaganza that blows any city away. Why not shine the spotlight on the people that make up this city, rather than stereotypical inanimate objects? We would love to see somebody like the Lord Mayor Clover Moore herself festooned with LED lights, cycling continually up and down George Street to the cheers of an adoring crowd. The entire Obeid clan could gather at one of their Circular Quay ‘family’ restaurants, dressed head to toe in shimmering light reflectors and ICAC could move to an outdoor evening setting, with every burst of Geoffrey Watson’s invective choreographed to a burst of pulsating strobes.

Now you’re talking, baby! It’s all a matter of bringing Vivid down from its lofty and often pretentious artistic heights and giving it street cred. Sure, we agree Sydney deserves a mid-year festival of sorts – something to brighten up the so called ‘winter blues’. But it needs to strike a real cultural nerve with the average Joe or Josephine. Forget about the hip dance parties, imported curators and geriatric music acts such as The Pixies and the Pet Shop Boys. Vivid needs to become an expression of the people, not a party for hipsters or a showcase for overseas tourists.

Vivid also needs to think seriously about its green credentials and if you are to have nightly projections on the sails of the Opera House (yawn again!), why not do so without leaving any carbon footprint? Three or four hundred dynamo-equipped bicycles could be assembled at west Circular Quay and punters would need to generate a constant supply of peddle power to keep the sails ablaze.

With the states facing enormous budget cuts on the tail of the recent Federal Budget, we wonder whether Vivid might become a causality of this austerity, or at the very least have its funding severely curtailed. This in fact could be a blessing in disguise as the festival embraces a new aesthetic of low-budget minimalism and total street cred. Mercifully, no more psychedelia on the Opera House sails. Instead midnight to dawn screenings of ‘60s B-grade horror movies complete with captions in Mandarin to keep the tourists happy. The Domain would become the setting for a do-it-yourself mini version of the Burning Man festival and the CBD thrown open to buskers from all over Sydney (no licence required).

Finally – God might have originally said: “Let there be light”, but let’s face it, he wasn’t picking up the electricity bill.

You May Also Like

Comments are closed.