Melbourne White Night 2014 successfully enjoyed and ticked off the To Do list.
It started with a Victorian Opera special performance in the Sofitel hotel, where they did extracts of Verdi and Puccini. A soprano, a tenor and a pianist. In Ms L's absence I was accompanied by her friend BC. Afterwards we walked across the city grid heading to the City Baths.
On the way we saw queues for the regular Old Melbourne Jail experience and the White Night feature Purple Rain. Not being dark yet, this didn't look anything special. When we reached the Baths we found the queue was an hour long already. So we sauntered through the growing crowds, past one of the live band stages and into the Wheeler Centre where there was a live interactive story writing session in progress.
This involved an author on stage typing into a notebook computer with the screen replicated on a larger screen behind them. Plot cues were being taken from the audiences via small cards and from live interjections. When the writer was stuck they'd call out for suggestions, almost as if thinking out loud.
From the Wheeler Centre we launched ourselves onto Swanston St and the disturbing crush of people moving along it. In two places the crush became so bad that I really felt we were seriously at risk but we eventually squished our way through. The were a few places where small stages had been set up and some had live performers in action but the crowd depth was too hard to see or hear anything. Disappointingly this year there were no projections aimed at the Town Hall and in the end there was very little value from walking down Swanston St.
The payoff finally came from reaching and turning into Flinders St along Federation Square. Here there were large scale projections onto the buildings from one next to the cathedral up to the Forum theatre. The latter was once again majestic to behold.
From there I accompanied BC back to Bourke St where she caught her tram home.
I then made my way down to Birrarung Marr and the various light installations there. Two of these I could see from afar - one that looked like a conical tent and one made of intersecting searchlights. When I got closer I could see that the tent was really a mound, presumably of sand, onto which two or three projectors mapped static and dynamic patterns.
Now it was clear that the other one was inside Alexandra Gardens as were numerous other light installations. The major one I'd already spotted was a giant double cone of intersecting light beams mounted on a large elevated ring with ambient sounds playing. After criss-crossing, the beams made a circle of big spots in the clouds above.
Then, I went past the vast NGV facade, this year the projections on it was a series of edits of photos of people with tattoos. Magnified to gigantic proportions the tattoos return to being primarily pieces of art.
Next I spent some time relaxing in the main stalls area of Hamer Hall. Here was a roll-play piano on which a sequence of recordings of Rachmaninov playing his own works were being run through the machine. Quite a treat to hear such original performances, the style is distinctively different from current renderings. It was also quite curious to watch people unfamiliar with - well any part of the Hamer Hall space and its norms - meandering in and out. In that there was no human performer to be miffed or insulted by peoples behavior this was, in a way, a stroke of genius as a program for White Night.
After hearing a few piano works I found a place in Hamer Hall to relax and recharge my phone battery. Comparing notes with some fellow resters I heard that I'd missed some tree projections in Alexandra Park. Also, they offered me a spare ticket they had for a 3am theatre ghost tour in the Arts Centre.
To fill in the hour we all walked back to see the tree projections, which were amazing examples of images that only resolve as you get to the right angle.
Arriving back in the Arts Centre to find the tours running a little late, we waited near a remainder street piano, which a couple of people whiled some time by playing. One guy played an ambient version of November Rain.
The Arts Centre ghost tour was a very proficient affair. A backstage and on-to-the-stages tour combined with various bumps in the night. Was worth it just to stand on stage and look back at the seats I've sat in watching performances.
Half of my (free) ticket donors called it a night but the other opted to come with me through to see the Baths and State Library.
En route, we looked into several lanes where projections had been mounted. Now that there were only stragglers spilling out of the nightclubs, these lesser projections (compared to the giant multicolour extravaganzas elsewhere) now seemed banal.
There were bands playing in the Bourke St mall and in La Trobe St.
Some of the street performers in Swanston St were still going. It isn't easy to label their act - trailer trash burlesque perhaps?
There was now no queue to enter the library. As with last year we were directed straight to the reading dome. This time, while there was ambient sound, the main activity was light projection of patterns that filled the entire dome ceiling and walls. The image on the ceiling was a pulsing coiled up mass of tissue that looked like a brain. Around the walls were stands of double helix DNA that twisted and turned yet managed to always fit in the walled gaps between bookshelves. On two sides were printed a number of deaths caused in 1914 and 2014, the proportion of people infected and the usual symptoms - for each organism displayed in sequence was a disease agent. Disease information is fascinating but became a bit much so it was soon time to move on.
Inside the baths was synchronised swimming and we were in time for the last run. It was the first time I'd been in the baths building - I only go past it every day. As the run we'd come in midway ended several knob-heads dangerously leapt into the pool from the upper surround balcony. Security staff quickly contained and detained them. A final round of applause for the swimmers and this feature was all over after ten hours. I said goodbye to my walking companion who needed to get back to Flinders St station.
As it was 5am by then I headed back to the Wheeler Centre where The Book of the Night was still under way. It was much quieter and calmer and the new writers quietly typed away, asking the semi-napping audience for plot tips. I had picked up a coffee from the 24 hour Pie Face around the corner. As each writer finished their hour long stint they have a 5-minute handover summary to the next. This process was almost as bizarre as the conglomerate story itself. I stayed for last writing session and then, it was all over. At 7am, a short "Thanks for coming" from the Emerging Writers Festival hand and a promise that the full story would be published after a good sleep.
I staggered sleepily out into the morning and walked up to Carlton for a café breakfast. Bought the Sunday paper from the newsagent who said that yes I looked like I'd been up all night.
Sent an SMS, set an alarm and crashed into bed.
