Laneways with secret art installations, luminous bars and rooftops boasting the best views of Sydney – these are the hidden gems of this year’s Vivid festival.
Whether it’s an evening of family fun, a picturesque date night or an excuse to catch up with friends amid serene surroundings, the festival has something for everyone.
Beyond the awe-inspiring colours of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House lies a treasure trove of scattered delights for visitors to look at, engage with and be moved by.
The hidden gems at Sydney’s Vivid festival have been revealed and include city laneways with art installations (pictured is Sydney’s Harbour Bridge)
Secret bars and rooftops with the best views of the city make for the ultimate viewing spaces of the lights (pictured is Luna Park)
A treasure trove of scattered delights allow visitors, engage with and be moved by awe-inspiring displays
At Greenway Lane, The Rocks, Activated hosts an immersive light sculpture that playfully engages visitors by reimagining architectural, visual, and musical techniques to create a novel interactive experience.
The showcsae of colour, sound and smoke effects paint six scenes, each inspired from a different Australian sunset while utilising music samples that explore a range of Australian urban and natural soundscapes.
Within the same precinct Illuminosarus on Artherden St boasts a three-metre dinosaur constructed from bent laser-cut steel, with a spine lined with hundreds of individually controlled RGB pixels.
The creature’s life force ripples through its body in dazzling colour displays emanating from its teeth, tremendous claws and bursting out of its chest and mouth.
With serene surroundings, the showcase has something for everyone from families to friends on a night out
On Kendall Lane, Luminous Flight suspends five brilliantly coloured kites above a small lane near Circular Quay.
The kites have been made from LED tubes and luminous fabric, with free-flowing tails that rustle in the wind giving the illusion of movement.
When viewers wave their hands towards the tail they activate a chase of colour and patterns within the kite.
A canopy of shimmering green light can be found hanging above the historical Kendall Lane.
The space, 555 Nanometres, responds to sound, light – and the weather.
Illuminosarus on Artherden St boasts a three-metre dinosaur constructed from bent laser-cut steel (pictured)
Activated hosts an immersive light sculpture that playfully engages visitors by reimagining architectural, visual, and musical techniques (pictured)
Inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s award-winning book, Dark Emu, EORA – Dark Emu is a large-scale projection, designed especially for the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s Southern Pylon.
The sight combines Aboriginal history, dance, art and architecture into a striking visual aesthetic head on Hickson Road accompanied with a fantastic view of the projection.
Closer to the CBD, Focus on Bridge St offers visitors the chance to interact with an installation through simple hand movements picked up by an infrared motion sensor.
Software generates music in real time according to the position of the participant’s hand over the infrared platform and the timbre of the sound then responds seamlessly with the hue of each lightbox.
A canopy of shimmering green light can be found hanging above the historical Kendall Lane (pictured)
City Living Lights featured on Loftus Street is a ‘forest’ made entirely of living, breathing algae that welcomes visitors with an energetic, bubbling ‘blurp’.
Growing and sustaining itself by harvesting the energy of the sun, in just three weeks Living Lights will produce more oxygen than a suburban park does in a year.
The installation contains three different strains of algae – two sourced from CSIRO’s Australian National Algae Culture Collection.
On Reiby Place, the marvellous amazement of Chrysalis is full of awaiting butterflies resting quietly (pictured)
The organisms’ naturally varying colours of bright red, gold and fluorescent green are lit up with LEDs.
On Reiby Place, the marvellous amazement of Chrysalis is full of awaiting butterflies resting quietly but, as visitors approach, they are ready to emerge.
The sound generated by viewers encourages each butterfly to awake and flutter.
As the noise grows louder, the butterflies become more active, and the glow on the shells becomes more colourful.