For the past 10 months, a team of over 40 artists have been working to create Light Dreams II! What is Light Dreams, you ask? I like to say it’s the intersection where art and technology meet.
As cool as that description may be, it still doesn’t do justice to what is being created through this artistic endeavor. If you come to the event this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night you will get to see the most visionary work being produced by our city’s top artists, engineers, technicians, and dreamers.
The outside plaza of UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center is wrapped in fabric to create a canvas for the event’s headliner installation, that we affectionately call, “The Big Show.” It’s a series of original, site specific architecturally mapped digital projections – this year in 3D. The opening piece, “What is Your Light Dream?” takes words and thoughts submitted by Birmingham and puts them in lights for everyone to see. In the second work, the entire audience gets to participate through a genius program developed by UAB’s Enabling Technology Lab. We, the audience, will participate via smart phones to help Vulcan save the city from doom. Then we move to an “Alice in Wonderland-esque” piece that evokes the dreamscape many of us see when we close our eyes at night. For the closing work, “Artista Somnia,” we experience artist and engineer Jean Jacques Gaudel’s surrealistic masterpiece in 3D. The Big Show runs twice nightly so you’ll get a chance to fully immerse in each work.
We’ll also get to experience two dozen “Points of Light” installations around the plaza. The ASC put out a challenge to artists to push themselves and the bounds of their creativity and the result is simply amazing. Be sure to check out the giant Pacman game that you can play, an ethereal water projection called “This is Life,” and a “Sink Hole,” a ground projection that exposes a colorful and dreamy underground world. That’s only the beginning though, so be sure and check out the other installations: http://www.uab.edu/
Each evening’s entertainment also includes live music from our city’s best musicians accompanied by large scale VJing on the wall that creates quite a spectacle. And, of course, there will be cutting edge installations in the Tech Birmingham Courtyard that you’ll want to check out.
Your fav local food trucks will be there, plus cash bars. All of this to say…it’s really a can’t miss event! We hope to see you there.
And, if you are near the ASC this week, drive by and check out the site. You may see the building being transformed!
Jessica Simpson
Programming Consultant &Curator
UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center
205.337.2134
www.AlysStephens.org
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