During the week of April 11-16 a special light convention was at the Frankfurt Messe (convention center) along with a biannual light exhibition dubbed "Luminale". Over 150 light exhibits were spread out literally all over Frankfurt, both indoors and outdoors, on display for the general public to enjoy freely. Pretty much anywhere that you walked in the downtown area there were displays on buildings, in alleyways, in parks, over ponds, etc. With only a week for the event, we had to make the most of our time.
Our first taste of the event was early in the week when we had Mike and Allison Thompson with us. We checked out the main train station and many of the parks and statues in that area. It was crazy seeing hundreds of people out walking around looking for light displays - many with fancy cameras and tripods trying to get that award-winning shot. I was the chode blast that had a great lens, but no tripod which was disastrous due to the extra long exposure time required for night shooting.
The hauptbahnhof (main train station) facade had a projector putting bees, and later rats, that scurried all over.
Many of the buildings had cheeky lights shining on them, or in them, although some were difficult to tell if it's always like that or is it an exhibit.
While not exactly an exhibit, the Euro sign at the European Central Bank is pretty cool at night.
Many of the statues that might be overlooked during the day were flooded with colored light and stuck out this week.
I went out on another evening that week with members from our small group, but came away with no pictures because I wasn't packin' heat. Marisa and I also went out a third time to watch a group put on a fire show. That basically boils down to a bunch of people wearing black and swinging sticks and chains with fire on the ends to techno music while occasional fireballs were sent up in the air in unison. I think they went through the entire Matrix soundtrack - it was pretty sweet though (sorry, no pics or video - we dropped the ball).
One of my best shots of the Alte Oper (old opera house)
This one was called "The Swarm" which made me think of Tech football. See, not all of the exhibits were on buildings.
Altogether, Luminale was a really neat art exhibition that was a lot of fun to enjoy outdoors and at night. The creativity of some of the exhibits was awesome and so different from most art that we usually get to see. Put it on your calendar two years from now!
