Brian Eno illuminates Sydney
Brian Eno calls it ‘scenius’: The melting pot that forms when artists, musicians and thinkers come together to create a storm of ideas. Let loose on the Sydney Opera House for the next fortnight, this is exactly what Eno is trying to achieve.
Heralded as the father of ambient music, a multimedia artist and a prominent environmentalist, Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno is curating the inaugural Luminous festival, running from May 26 until June 14, as part of Events NSW’s, Vivid.
“What I am doing here is trying to state some sort of new cultural position, which is a position I think is developing globally, where quite a lot of the barriers that have separated the art forms from one another have withered away,” Eno told a mixed crowd of media and fans on Tuesday.
“A lot of the people you will see in this festival work in a cross-disciplinary way, who work in forms of music that don’t really have a name. I think it’s very particular to the 21st century.”
As well as towing along a global cast of musicians, Eno will host a series of symposiums with a selection of today’s avant-garde thinkers, including James Thornton, founder of Client Earth, a legal charity with a mission to drive environmental justice. Eno will also speculate on the afterlife with neuroscientist David Eagleman in a reaction to his recent book SUM, in the performance Tales from the Afterlives.
Coordinated alongside Smart Light Sydney, the harbour foreshore Light Walk, which starts at Observatory Hill, will culminate with the lighting of the sales of the Opera House.
Powerful projectors positioned around the edge of Sydney Harbour will transform the Opera House into Eno’s own 360 degree canvas, from 6pm until midnight, every night of the festival.
Sydneysiders are also invited to see 77 Million Paintings, a dynamic light installation in which 300 of Eno’s hand-drawn images are cut up and constantly rearranged in a moving display, which will be exhibited free for the duration of Luminous. Visit luminous.sydneyoperahouse.com for event details.
