Spectra, Aberdeen’s Festival of Light, returns to the city this month and celebrates the 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology through this year’s theme A New Light.
Growing from its home in Union Terrace Gardens (UTG), Spectra will take place over five city-centre sites this year, including Marischal College, St Nicholas Kirkyard, new site The Roof Garden and Seventeen, with a transformational display of light and sound installations.
UTG will welcome works from world-renowned kinetic sculptor Paul Friedlander, whose Wave Garden – inspired by James Clarke Maxwell – will form the backdrop to a launch performance from Fusion Dance and choreographer Jack Webb. Exploring the historic literature of the north-east, Impossible’s Doric Smoorach will allow families to have their faces 3D scanned and transformed into monolithic Easter-Island like totems reciting the Doric poetry of Sheena Blackhall.
Audio-visual artist Carlos Bernal will return with Adapt 5 to transport visitors into his digital world, while pa-Boom’s hot heads will bring the most primal of lights to the gardens as six braziers sculpted on historic figures of the Silver City will bring some warmth to the winter nights.
A series of new commissions by Scottish artists to pilot new works and the family-friendly activity stations will bring some hands-on fun along with Caitlin Brown and Wayne C. Garrett’s interactive Cloud sculpture.
In the Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen’s international artistic connections are celebrated – French masters of light installations Groupe LAPS will unveil an all-new commission for Aberdeen, Les Araignées – Giant Light Spiders taking over the graveyard in tribute to Robert The Bruce, while Tobias Daemgen’s art collective Raum Zeit Piraten will bring their ElektroMistel to the trees, a nod to the Gaelic myth of the all healing plant.
Inside the Kirk, Felix Thorn will install one of his marvellous machines, an automated percussion instrument, which will play an entirely new work based on traditional Aberdonian folk songs composed for the festival, while Greek media artist Yiannis Kranidiotis’ Pentatono, a kinetic harmonic oscillator, pendulums of light and sound.
SPECTRA 2017 welcomes the addition of its fifth site, the St Nicholas Roof Top Gardens. Introducing a new live music element at the bandstand to the programme, in partnership with True North, this space will also host installations by Jim Buckley and the STACK Collective, new commissions recognising both established and emerging local talent.
BAFTA-award-winning digital artist Seb Lee-Delise will transform Marischal College into a massive interactive instrument – a touch-activated light installation that will dazzle you with thousands of super bright LEDs allowing visitors to play the custom-made synths and cover the entire building with shimmering dancing lights.
Double Take Projections will return with their brilliant Mitchell Hall installation which will once again be a huge sound and light show documenting the deep history of Aberdeen. Andrew Brooks and Adelle Stripe’s Secret City Aberdeen will unveil the hidden, forgotten and neglected spaces of the city and a new fictional narrative from the poet in association with Granite Noir. The entrance to Marischal College will also be transformed by Yiannis Kranidiotis’ 9 Months Rebirth, an immersive audio-visual space on the theme of rebirth.
Another new addition to SPECTRA 2017 is the Catalyst Conference. Taking place over two days, the conference will bring together industry experts with business and international partners to identify ways to develop the cultural economy in Aberdeen.
Led by action, not the reading of papers, and interspersed with entertainment, the event is intended to be a catalyst for action at home and internationally.