Power to the artist

Live snail art!

Last night, we attended the very first night of our first show for the Hong Kong Arts Festival, now in its 39th year. This was Powerplant, a sound and light show being staged in Kowloon Walled City Park, a place with a fascinating history.

With twenty-three installations in the course of the self-guided walk through the park, this is a must-see for anyone in Hong Kong between now and when the show closes on the 13th March. The pieces ranged from the fairly simple, where existing statues were lit up one-by-one, accompanied by varying sounds, to amazing works like nothing I have ever experienced.

The work above takes some explaining. Much of the art was under the direct control of the artists sitting at small tables in the park - this one was a projected digital image, through some sort of kaleidoscopic process, of a small bowl, which contained various natural materials, and live insects, as selected by the artist. In a strange sort of collaboration between the artist and the insect, in this case a snail (though the piece is entitled 'Worm Cam') some fascinating images were thrown up on the huge screen in front of us, which slowly evolved as the insects moved and the artist adjusted the materials, or the kaleidoscopic effect. This work illustrates one guiding theme of the show - being inspired by the park itself - as all the natural materials and insects are sourced from within the park. It does beg the question, 'Will there be new insect 'collaborators' each night, or will the most gifted performers be retained and nurtured throughout the show?'

Bellflowers - Anne Bean

Just as fascinating as the work itself was the audience reactions. Some works invited a quiet awe, whereas others generated a fascinating buzz of conversation and a visible excitement. One of the latter was a small podium exhibit within a tiny gazebo in the garden that periodically (and in that lay the suspense) gave the illusion of bubbling up with a 3D lava effect. People crowded around, straining their eyes in the dark, waiting for they didn't know what, until it happened, and the noise would draw more people in. A personal favourite of mine, though not one of the most visually stunning, had a quiet beauty of its own. Glass bells, for want of a better word, hung from a group of trees at various heights. Various of the bells, in ever-shifting combinations, would light up, literally fading in and then out, and at the same time a metal clapper would shimmer  gently against the edge of the bell, creating a mesmerizing tableau. It is the sort of thing that on a slightly warmer night (there was a chill in the air), I might have wanted to stay and watch for hours.

I'm not sure if this short video will do this work justice (the sound is quite poor) but many of the works could only really be appreciated in movement. This one had dozens of led-lit windmills, spinning in multi-coloured fashion across the far side of a quiet pool of water. Though normally the sort of thing I love - it reminded me of the Monkey lights I bought for my bike back in Australia - there was so much to see in Powerplant that I was almost overloaded with sensation at this point in the walk. The whole show was a reminder of the immense power of light and sound, particularly at night, to evoke mood and sensation, and to return us to a child-like sense of delight.

Old-time gramaphones playing surreal music

Of course for adults this child-like delight sometimes get side-tracked by our desire to pin it all down, and obviously I am no exception. The cameras, from fancy SLRs to smartphones, were out in force, as people tried to hold onto the sense of wonder they were feeling. Very wisely the organisers had banned flash photography - I can only imagine how much of the show would have been undermined by the barrage of camera flashes. This was well-respected by everyone there, a tribute to the civility of the Hong Kong people.

The grand finale of the show, as I think was intended, was a piece called Pyrophones, by artist Mark Anderson, who has a number of works in the show. This took place in one of the largest water features in the garden and contained an array of vertical pipes, protruding from the water, like a vast distributed pipe organ. For this is what it was, though of a dramatic sort. Played by the artist himself (?), these pipes belched tongues of flame, in time with particular sounds that conjured up the fire theme perfectly. The result was a symphony of fire and music that charged the night air with adrenalin, perhaps more usually evoked with bonfires and massed drumming. Though by this point I was overwhelmed by sensation, it was nonetheless hard to tear ourselves away from this work, and was a reminder of how actual fire still has a magic unbeaten by LED technological wizardry. A show to remember...