Lumiere London: An incomplete review

Probably going to spell Lumiere wrong at least once in this Blog... my brain wants to put the letter R in it at least twice. That is right, I said 'at least twice', if it were up to me it would be spelled Lumierrrrrrrrre and would be pronounced Loo-mee- eurrrrrrgh (at this point in the pronunciation it would be important to shrug nonchalantly like a french person might, preferably you'd be wearing a beret and drinking red wine)

Basically you'd look like this;

I literally searched 'French Person' and this was the top result!

 So for those who are unaware what Lumiere London was, I can tell you it was not this;

Perhaps he will be our guest!

So what was it? It was a selection of artistic light displays dotted around London for the general public to look at!

Before I start reviewing sections of this show I must tell you that this is definitely an incomplete review as my Girlfriend and I certainly didn't see all of it.
But why??? I shall go into that later, calm down!
I am also not an art critic and have literally NEVER reviewed art before. However, I shall do my best! I am going to describe them to you before I look at any pictures, that way we will see how could my memory was.

So Katie (the aforementioned Girlfriend) and I started viewing these lights at Oxford Circus which if you look at the following map featured 'Light Art number 6.' 
(Is that what they should be called... Light Art? I have literally no idea!)

Light Art Number 6

Number 6 was a big cuboid thing hung above the junction of oxford circus, it changed colours 

between red and green and blue (and, I dunno... purple?) and apparently represented a tsunami!

This is the only one that I know anything about further than what I saw on the day, because the map we were given didn't explain anything, you could download an app which was really difficult to use that would explain what the pieces were about but... it was difficult to use and this first one didn't remind me of a tsunami (can you be reminded of something you have never actually seen?) so I decided to neglect the difficult app after this and come to my own conclusions, my logic being... how hard can it be to understand Artistic intention!

I would have called it 'Windows Media Player Visualiser'

I give it a 3/5. It was nice to look at and changed colour and I imagine it took a lot of effort to get it up (whey) above one of the biggest junctions of London.

Lets move on to...

Light Art Number 2

(I am still not really happy with the use of 'Light Art' but... I am going to stick with it unless I think of something better between now and the next one!)

Light Art Number 2 was a selection of huge Flying fish things, there were two on regent street and three on Picadilly. They were massive and flew in the air like kites (there were actual people flying them from the ground). They also changed colours, between Blue, yellow and orange and the like.

As mentioned before, I do not know the artistic intention, but I would have said they were there to represent what the world will be like when it is invaded by a race of Giant, Multicoloured, Flying Fish. Or, maybe it was a global warming thing...

See, I told you I had a girlfriend (she is the one in the foreground, the things further back are the fish light things!)

I would give the fish things a 4/5. It was impressive how they flew and they looked like actual things. They also gathered a large crowd around them. Which was fine as both Regent Street and Picadilly were closed to cars... which I must say, was kinda cool.

De-Light Number 3

(I came up with a better term than 'Light Art', I am genuinely quite chuffed with myself)

So De-Light Number 1 was between Piccadilly and Regent Street and had two sides to it.

It was an Elephant

It represented an Elephant

It reminded me of an Elephant

The Front Side was the front of an Elephant

EL-E-PHANT

The Back Side was... well the backside of an Elephant

Back of Elephant

I Give it Elephant/5 because Elephant. Elephant.

At this point, whilst writing, I loudly trumpeted like an elephant would... there are two other people in the computer room I am currently in... they look confused. Putting gloves on my ears and pulling my scarf over my nose so I'd look like an elephant probably didn't help...

I am surprisingly pleased with how this photo turned out!

De-Light Numero Uno

Yes I wrote in Spanish, what of it!

De-Light Number 1 was my favourite, it was called the light Garden and was in Leicester Square. It was, in my opinion, made to look like a giant garden in which we were the size of a small rodent, perhaps a Shrew, but all the plants were lights.

I am not sure it was supposed to represent anything deeper than a garden but it was fun, and it looked darn good and it was just quite awesome. Everyone in there seemed happy with themselves just because they were in it! It was reminiscent of the Chocolate room in the original 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'

My pictures don't do it justice as I am not a photographer but still...

It was at this moment that the Acid kicked in

I believe this plant is called a 'Hangiada lightis'

I would easily give De-Light 1 a 5/5, my reasons... It was an LSD fueled, Roald Dahl inspired, Light show that made you go ooooooooh!

Also Shakespeare was there (he may always be there...)

"Light Seeking Light doth Light of Light Beguile" Love Labours Lost
(Damn Right I just included a quote by Shakespeare about Light... I am that good!)

After Leicester Square, Katie and I walked to Trafalgar Square where we were thoroughly amazed...





by how disappointing the two De-Lights in Trafalger Square were.

One De-Light (De-Light 11) was simply a reconstruction of the 'Centre Point' Lights to scale.
This would be impressive if they had turned out to be massive but they were, in fact, 6 foot high... at most.

De-Light 10 was a load of rubbish. Literally. Someone had filled one of the fountains with plastic bottles and shone a light on it. Looking back I am now wondering if this was actually part of Lumiere London or simply an inherent litter problem in our capital! I assume it was supposed to show how we are all scruffy urchins who need to recycle more.

Not shown: Street Cleaner Crying

After this Disappointment and due to the drastically cold weather, we went home. Hence the incomplete review. There were also a large amount of De-Lights around King's Cross but we never made it.

If i were to review the overall event I would give it the following score

3/5

The De-Lights themselves were hit and miss, from the heights of the Night Garden to the lows of the litter fountain but I suppose that is the nature of Art. I would say I was happier with more of them than I wasn't.

I think the organisers could have perhaps made the locations of the exhibits a little closer to one another. I think it was fine to have two main concentrations (Piccadilly area and King's Cross) but as well as those there were the odd displays dotted at Grosvenor Square and at Euston.

Better info on the website would have also been useful to plan a route, and a more accessible app would have made the whole experience more informed!

That sounds rather negative though and actually I had a lovely evening and I saw an elephant that wasn't actually an elephant... it was lights!

If it is on again next year... I recommend you go!

Merry Tuesday to you all and farewell.

The end. (sort of)

Review of Last week's Comments

The 'S' on the end of the title of this section is a little presumptuous as after my Blog last week, I received my first comment, but only one comment.

Chris Deakin wrote;

Ah mate tonsillitis?! Nightmare. Still, EUSCSTA seem pretty cool!

I shall now proceed to tear your comment to pieces Mr Deakin. In response to your first sentence, how could you question if I had Tonsillitis after the Blog you had just read? I feel that if you had got only one thing from last week's Blog it would have been that I had Tonsillitis, even I know I said it too many times!!!

I therefore will not answer your question directly as I do not think it merits an answer.

With regards to your second sentence, it was a Nightmare, I can assure you of that. However, I never mentioned that in my blog, I would ask you not to jump to conclusions about my well-being in the future.

Third Sentence, I am afraid I spoke to EUSCSTA and they do not wish for people to associate them with your opinion of them being 'pretty cool'. Therefore in future, refer to them as nothing more than 'slightly cool'.

Anyway, please feel free to comment below!

T'END