Great Train Expo (4) - Old and New

Great Train Expo (3) - The People

The Volunteers

The Train Spotters, who seem to wear checked shirts and woolly hats.

This wasn't a commuter train, he was fast asleep on one of the display trains.

Great Train Expo (2)

Great Train Expo

A couple of weeks ago I took myself to the Sydney Great Train Expo at Central Station. Mainly because I needed a subject for a class assignment (documentary photography, which is why they are all b&w) but it turned out to be fun. I hadn't been on a steam train since I was a kid.

As well as several steam engines they had the Southern Aurora and a modern Countrylink train, all of which  you could wander over. Trains certainly attract some odd people.

(I'm playing with a trial of a photoshop download so today's shots are antiqued, which I thought would suit the subject).

Monochrome Weekend - Vivid -

Argyle Cut by Mark Dyson
This significant historic arch is part of the support system for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It stretches across the Argyle Cut, a pass hewn by convicts over 24 years through sandstone. This installation transforms the rugged, practical environment into an intimate theatrical setting. Gone is the vast expanse of concrete, replaced by glimpses of the Victorian era and geometric patterns in a sequence that migrates nightly from west to east.
Queenslander Mark Dyson has worked in all facets of the lighting industry from theatre and festivals to touring rock’n’roll acts like James Brown and Justin Timberlake. He created lighting for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, Queen Elizabeth’s private 80th birthday celebrations and Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball. Dyson is lighting designer for Sydney Dance Company’s new work LandFORMS, and Co‐Director of Brisbane based contemporary dance company, Company Clare Dyson.

For more monochrome madness, visit Dragonstar's Weekend in Black and White.

Weekend Reflections - Vivid - Eye See You by Zymryte Hoxhaj

Eye See You is watching you! More than 300 handmade and printed paper-puppets are watching you with their giant eye. The artist is exploring the ever-increasing presence of public space surveillance and the desire for after dark public space to be more creative and safe. Public versus private and self versus collective are relationships constantly negotiated and reflected upon here.
German born designer Zymryte Hoxhaj, of Kosovo-Albanian heritage, has completed her thesis in media art, design and graphic design at the school of fine arts, Hochschule der Bildenden Kunste Saar, in Saarbrucken, Germany. Zymryte is now part of the design collective BUREAU STABIL in Germany.
For more reflections visit James' Newtown Area Photo.

Vivid

The Garrison by Steve Furzey

The Garrison Church explodes in a candy stripe of VIVID colours embracing the warmth of this grand sandstone building that was the colony’s first military church. As the colours blend from one to the next see the sandstone in a new light, as it’s never been seen before and soak up the atmosphere of this colourful historic precinct.
Steve Furzey is a Lighting Designer with Sylvania Lighting Australasia (SLA), a vertically integrated designer, manufacturer and distributor of lighting systems. With key international partners and access to leading edge lamp technologies, SLA markets a comprehensive selection of lighting fixtures for architectural, industrial/commercial, decorative and residential applications. Complementary to this extensive range of fixture products, SLA also sources unique and diverse international lighting products.

The Light Wheel by Andre Kecskes & Mark Hammer

The Light Wheel is a deceptive play on the sun as the source of light, with clever LED lamps creating a mass of moving patterns as this suspended sculpture animates itself and cycles through its colour spectrum with pulses and ripples throughout the evening. The sculpture runs entirely off one 10amp outlet using just LED technology.
Lighting designers Mark Hammer and Andre Kecskes have collaborated again after Vivid Sydney 2009. Hammer lit the Sydney Harbour Bridge for its 75th Anniversary and has been the lighting designer of the Sydney New Year’s Eve Bridge Effect since 2008. Kecskes specialises in large-scale event lighting design as well as private events such as the Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban wedding.

Touch. Do Not Please the Work of Art by Cornelia Erdmann
Leave your mark on this playful installation. The artist invites your interaction, exploring touch and its demarcations – what we can touch, who we can touch, appropriate touch and the emotional connotations of touch. This glow in the dark installation comes to life at night with stroboscope spotlights and captures you touching, looking and passing the artwork, casting your silhouettes and shadows like an instant personal graffiti. Go ahead – Touch!
German born, Hong Kong based artist Cornelia Erdmann creates site specific public artworks in Europe, US & Asia, using technology, light and mixed media. Her pieces range from interactive installations to sculptures and interventions. She has a Master's degree in architecture and an MFA in Public Art. Cornelia focuses on the interaction of space and society, creating a smile on the way.

Interactive Paint Projection by Spinifex Group
Unleash the graffiti artist within as you “spray-paint” the MCA’s southern exterior with light. This interactive technology interprets your body movements to create colourful splashes, drips and spirals that are all yours.Ask a friend to snap your handiwork as you bend, stretch or dance up a storm to create a unique canvas. It’ll probably be the biggest artistic statement of your life!
Sydney-based experiential specialists, Spinifex collaborated with projection specialists, The Electric Canvas to bring you this interactive installation.
Spinifex is one of our best. They were responsible for the iconic imagery seen at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo Opening Ceremony, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony and again for the 2009 Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

Vivid

Illuminate by Daniel Mercer & Richard Neville
LOOK UP! illuminate draws on the collective power of numerous tiny, highly efficient light sources to create this appealing lighting design using less power than the existing lights for The Rocks Square. Some 140 hanging tubes are filled with individually controllable LEDs producing 9000 pixels of light, re-lighting this space with continuously changing colours and patterns that never produce the same look twice.
Richard Neville is a young Australian lighting designer whose work spans professional theatre, concert, television, dance party, recital and corporate projects around the world. Richard has collaborated with Daniel Mercer – one of the founding directors of Australian lighting and visual design company Mandylights and Alex Grieson a young creative designer.

Officers House by Vessi Ivanova & Thomas Stevens
This handsome heritage building was the Officers House in colonial Sydney days. The artists have chosen to paint it with light colour from inside out, creating a dynamic and emotive artwork on the façade. The play of shadows and colourful light are achieved with varying light distribution fittings projected on the vertical surfaces and are set for you to see this architecture in a surprising new way. ENJOY!
Northrop Lighting Design Studio and Lightingroup have collaborated to create this installation. Studio manager and multiple lighting design award winner, Vessi Ivanova and designer Thomas Stevens worked in partnership with manufacturers of Lightingroup. Northrop offers creative lighting solutions, combining artistic expertise and operational superiority to ensure aesthetics and functional integrity. Lightingroup is an award winning commercial lighting manufacturer supplying major commercial building projects throughout Australia.

The Georges by Gordon Watson

This colour changing design pays tribute to the heritage of the buildings, using the waves of colour to highlight both the diversity of the residents who lived here over the years and the ever changing population as older residents move on and new dwellers arrive.
Dr Gordon Watson is Principal of Sydney based electrical and lighting design firm Gordon Watson and Associates. After arriving from Zambia, Watson established the firm 30 years ago and has provided exterior lighting solutions for buildings ranging from churches to industrial warehouses. Thorn Lighting is part of the Zumtobel Group - the largest manufacturers of light fittings in Europe. Thorn manufacture in Australia and supply lighting for commercial buildings, industrial, retail and exterior lighting, including stadiums such as ANZ. Their designs are based on lighting efficiency, combined with high performance and visual comfort.

Vivid

Nothing Like the Sun by Hannah Groff & Jason Glenwright

Recycled PVC and solar powered LEDs are manipulated to form this zero power consuming, glowing silhouette of Australia’s most famous architectural structure, the Sydney Opera House. This environmentally friendly piece is charging its solar energy power source during the day to emerge glowing at night and changing as it consumes the solar energy and flickers through its nightlife to eventually turn off for the day.
Visualisation artist Hannah Groff and Queensland theatre lighting designer Jason Glenwright have created Nothing Like the Sun. Groff is a Qld College of Art graduate and Digital Design award winner. She has exhibited in Hamburg, Vermont & Melbourne. Glenwright is QUT Fine Arts graduate and theatre lighting producer with QTC, Bell Shakespeare, La Boite, QPAC and others. He is a multiple Matilda Award nominee, including for Best Emerging Artist.

Carnivlux by Andrew Daly & Katharine Fife
Walk beneath this field of hanging lights to inspire a journey back into the childhood, dreamlike world of the carnival. Experience a place of wonder in this multi-coloured city sanctuary. Suspended and eclectic lights with varying lamp shades give Carnivlux the atmosphere of a collection of memories that everyone can enjoy and experience. The programmable LED lights are 80% more energy efficient than traditional bulbs and are readily available.
Vivid Sydney 2009 People’s Choice winner Andrew Daly and design collaborator Katharine Fife are emerging installation artists and working designers based in Sydney. Fife is completing a Bachelor of Design in Architecture at the University of Sydney. Daly completed his Bachelor of Design in Architecture with Honours and Masters of Architecture with Honours and was awarded the University Medal. Andrew exhibited in Singapore last year.

Web of Light by Ruth McDermott & Ben Baxter

Highlighting the beauty and mystery of a web, cut glass beads refract natural and artificial light to mimic water on a web. It reflects on the battle between nature and the built environment. Where skyscrapers dominate, nature finds a way to create its own structures. The web comes to life with a ray of sun or a pin-point LED on the raindrops defining the unseen to delight day and night.
Award winning, internationally recognised artist Ruth McDermott specialises in site specific installations. Her work is in the Powerhouse Museum collection and she has exhibited in Oslo, Seattle, Verona, Tokyo, Milan and Australia. Ben Baxter is an emerging artist specialising in light and public artwork. He has a Fine Arts Degree from COFA, a Masters of Industrial Design from UNSW and is studying a Masters of Illumination Design at Sydney University.

Public Art Pencil by Paul Johnson & Gail Mason
Come On – Give It A Go! This low energy installation allows children and adults alike to draw temporary artwork in laser light on a giant sketchpad. Use the oversized laser pencil to create ephemeral images at night. The glowing images have a life-span of several minutes and as they fade more can be drawn over the top, creating depth.
Queensland based, Kiwi artistic duo Paul Johnson and Gail Mason combine their sculptural, design and horticultural passions in public art projects throughout Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia through their partnership Artventure. Paul graduated in Art & Art History at Auckland University, and went on to exhibit internationally, produce commissioned art and teach tertiary art. Gail trained at Wellington Polytechnic in Graphic and Industrial Design and later gained a certificate in Horticulture.

Vivid

Crystallized by Andrew Daly & Katharine Fife
Come inside this cave of glittering stalactites in Crystallized, created from 4000 edge-lit acrylic, recyclable rods making a canopy, and programmed LEDs giving an ever fluctuating colourful abstraction of a starry night sky that you can wander beneath. This spatial installation takes the Vivid Sydney theme of ‘Let there be Light’ and harks back to the beginning of time before city light pollution dimmed our view of scattered stars.
Vivid Sydney 2009 People’s Choice winner Andrew Daly and design collaborator Katharine Fife are emerging installation artists and working designers based in Sydney. Fife is completing a Bachelor of Design in Architecture at the University of Sydney. Daly completed his Bachelor of Design in Architecture with Honours and Masters of Architecture with Honours and was awarded the University Medal.

(B)right on time by Tim Carr, Tim Hunt, Jo Black, Carter Leung & Mark Gilder

Hey listen for trains as this installation connects the rail movements above through clever technology, to synchronise with projected, pulsating lights. Varying intensity will indicate the trains coming and going. Listen to the sounds and feel the vibrations as (B)right on time amuses while you pass by and the light fades to black awaiting another train. Clever LED lamps use less power than the normal lighting here.
Senior Lighting Designer Tim Carr heads this team from global award winning design and engineering firm Arup. Lighting designers Tim Hunt, Jo Black and Carter Leung with architect and urban designer Mark Gilder collaborated on the work that reflects their interest in responsible environmental design.

aLf: by Victoria Bolton, Kim Nguyen Ngoc, Catherine Kuok, Guy Hanson
Wake him up! aLf: (artificial Light form) - an artificial biomorphic entity that glows when you physically interact with him. He sleeps with a subdued blue pulse when he feels alone. aLf is inspired by the symbiotic nature of the bluebottle. When awakened by your presence aLf will engage in a visual conversation with you so let him know you are there.
The aLf team consists of Kim Nguyen Ngoc, Victoria Bolton, Catherine Kuok and Guy Hanson of Woodhead architects collaborating with Steven Brims of Umow Lai, Osram, Waterman, Philips Dynalite and Powersense.
The team is interested in contextual, performative design and digital fabrication. aLf: is an experimental application for environmental responsive structures and façade systems.

Immersion by Martin Bevz & Kathryn Clifton
Immersion invites you to play with the “happy tube” LED lighting, reflecting your movement through the installation via a live video relay of still and dynamic images. By night, you can be the centrepiece of the installation as you immerse yourself in a pool of bright coloured and textured light. This design is fully recyclable and uses less than 10amps of power.
Light artist Martin Bevz has been an active producer of light projects in Sydney over the past decade for events ranging from fashion parades to product launches and events. His creative concepts for public light events are always energy efficient. Light design newcomer Kathryn Clifton drew her inspiration and vision for Immersion from her current studies of primary education at Macquarie University.

Fight for your rights

It didn't make any difference and they passed the legislation but its still worth letting them know how we feel. The main issue shouldn't be the money (although that's what the media have focussed on) its about maintaining the independence of the Industrial Relations Commission.