Vivid Sydney: Beauty as well as Brains

For a fortnight, Sydney is the spectacular, cultural and intellectual centre of the world and UNSW Art & Design students, staff and alumni are in the eye of the creative storm.

In many ways, the ethos of UNSW A&D is encapsulated in Vivid. Kate Burleigh, managing director of Intel Australia & New Zealand, argues Vivid is the celebration of the trans-disciplinary STEAM community (Science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics). Thousands of engineers, designers, technologists, and artists have worked together marrying science and creativity, art and design to create a sensational festival. Many of them belong to the extended creative campus of UNSW A&D.

Alumni Jonathan Jones is one of several exhibiting artists in the MCA’s Luminous. This exhibition includes shooting star spirits, geometric patterns of light and dark dancing on walls, ambient installations and infinity windows carved into architectural space.

As part of this exhibition Jonathan Jones is on a panel discussing the role of light in art. Let There be Light: A Conversation about Light as Art will explore light’s formal, mystical and scientific properties and the numerous technological solutions artists use to harness light’s power.

A&D lecturer and contemporary artist Joanne Handley is presenting 21 Breaths as part of University of Sydney’s Vivid Path to the Future. In this new work reflects upon Tibetan yogic practices, neon bands ascending from red through violet represent the seven chakras of the subtle body and their corresponding frequency in the visible spectrum.

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) graduate Zina Kaye's light scupture Space Folding glows and pulsates as her computer streams real-time Qantas data about the air space above Sydney airport. Located on the corner of George and Alfred Street, First Fleet Park in Circular Quay, Space Folding is part of the Vivid Light Walk 2015. 

PhD candidate Miguel Valenzuela's work, Rhizom Prism, is a freestanding hybrid ‘electro-sculpture’ resembling stacked prisms. Interactive imagery, video and animations are projected from the interior and respond to audience movement. A complex array of sounds and atmospheric audio further enhances the interactive experience. You'll find it on Circular Quay until 8 June. 

The phantasmagoric lights transforming the city’s architecture are only part of an equally compelling program of events exploring innovation, technology, design, art and social impact. Vivid Ideas boasts a world-renowned program of conferences, workshops, panels, talks, showcases, and exhibitions.

xCommunicate is a symposium hosted by UNSW A&D looking closely at place-making phenomena like Vivid Sydney. xCommunicate will bring together a spectrum of voices from across the local, national and international digital/new media and media architecture sectors to look at the new interface between community engagement, urban screens and place-making in the digital age.

As part of xCommunicate, UNSW Galleries is running First Friday: Living Here Now - Cities. This evening event explores how we attempt to navigate the complex layers of urban landscapes while maintaining an individual’s right to the city. The artists and architects included in the June First Fridays program investigate modes of urbanism, community-minded living and ground-roots activism to determine how we live in our cities.

On 2 and 3 June, the Sydney Remix Summit extends the big ideas shaping creative cities, economies and culture. As in 2014, UNSW Art & Design and Business are partnering with Remix Summits and senior UNSW staff, including Professor Ross Harley, are presenting on panels and contributing to discussion about engaging and educating youth and young adults in technology, culture, innovation and entrepreneurship. The key question is the same one posed by Kate Burleigh: How can we increase access and create opportunities for cross-discipline and platform collaborations and partnerships to inspire the next generation of designers, engineers and artists?

Notable alumni presenting at the Remix Summit are Lisa Havilah, Director of Carriageworks, and Ben Wong from General Assembly. 

Remix only occurs in four cultural capitals globally. Sydney’s inclusion is proof that international innovators believe the city is at the forefront of the STEAM revolution. UNSW Art & Design is proud to be involved at the epi-centre of this inter-disciplinary festival transforming urban society. As Jess Scully, Director of Vivid Ideas says; “Sydney has beauty as well as brains.”

Vivid 2015 will run from the 22 May until 8 June 2015.