Singapore Night Festival 2014

By Dejiki on August 24, 2014 in Art+Culture, Photos

After missing Singapore Night Festival in the last two years, I made it a point to be at the festival grounds this year, at all costs. So one friday night, I was at the front lawn of the Singapore Art Museum, watching the now-iconic projection art on the museum’s façade.

I certainly didn’t have the time or energy to cover the entire festival, so this entry is more like Glimpses of the Night Festival – a walk around the Bras Basah.Bugis Precinct in about 2 hours.

Seconds after stepping out of Bras Basah MRT station: Follow the sounds and walk towards the front of the Singapore Art Museum.

Spirits of Nature, a multimedia projection by WeComeInPeace.

Quite a minimalist multimedia projection (compared to some colourful ones in the past). The more interesting segments would be when projection attempts to break the façade apart and shift its form.

AcroYogis, acrobatic partner yoga (which the audience was quite.. hesitant in joining), presented by the Starlight Alchemy.

ZingO, a local drum group, performing in front of the National Museum of Singapore (NMS).

William Close and the Earth Harp Collective. One of the largest installations at the NMS is Close’s musical instrument, Earth Harp, that is built into the façade of the museum – through wires, that is. The cello-like sound produced is probably synthensised through Close’s manipulation of the harp’s strings (and not amplified from actual sound from the wires… I think). William Close and his band would perform several sets each night, collaborating with local performers.

This is probably the most popular bit of the Night Festival, as the entire front lawn of NMS was crammed with people. My advice would be to be near the stage at least 20-30 minutes before a show (or basically just make yourself comfortable right after the last show ends). A smaller Earth Harp can be found at the Rotunda of NMS as an interactive installation.

The Drum Cloud.

One of the pieces was performed with this novel Percussion Jacket, where patches work as drum pads.

**Insert Caption Please by RYF. You might recognise this from iLight Marina Bay.

These giant visages, either majestic or haunting, are part of Divine Trees – an installation by Clément Briend. You’ll have to walk around the MainGround of NMS to find them all.

Oddly, one of them is surrounded by a field glowing in purple, backed with an unsettling, rather discordant music that lingers the area. Eerie.

The faces are not “flat” projections, but somehow the artist managed to use the form of the trees to create a Trompe-l’oeil effect. This means you’ll need to stand at the right spot for the face to appear correctly. There are no markers on the floor, but don’t worry.

Just look around at where other photographers are gathering. Usually that’s the right spot.

Continue walking towards Dhoby Ghaut and you’ll find yourself at the Festival Village. Stop here to chill out with food, drinks and live music, or check out the installation here: Cyanea, by Cumulus.

Cross the road to School of the Arts (SOTA) for yet another installation: Umbrellas. Scattered along the steps of SOTA are several of these “shelters”. Sheltering from.. darkness? or some shady people I saw lurking in the shadows? Either way, the installation was rather popular as they make good selfie spots.

Teleport back to Queen Street…

Buskers can be found at many random spots in the festival area. Here, Urban Street Team performers showed off their sleek moves – dribbling the soccer ball in almost any way possible.

Walk further down (towards Bugis) and you’ll end up at the National Design Centre. Three installations here. Your Canvas by SUTD.

Very Small Exhibition. Created by the alumni of the renowned Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Design. (Whoo!)

If you see festival visitors carrying with white balloons with an LED light inside… You know where they got them.

And the last piece for the blog: Flights of Fancy by SUTD. A shimmering sculpture mimicking butterflies, which bleeds sparks of colour around the atrium of the National Design Centre.

There are of course, a lot more installations to see. The Museums around the area are also open throughout festival hours. There are also special exhibitions during this period, so do check them out.