| rev:text
| - In it's short history Nuit Blanche had become one of my favourite cultural events in the city.
Even a disastrous 'last date' a few years ago was redeemed by the spectacle and general weirdness of the evening. Who cares that your heart is breaking when you can see a giant reflective bunny in the middle of a shopping mall, or random four-letter words pulsating in the City Hall courtyard. When those letters mocked me by fluorescently humming the word "LOVE", I knew I'd find someone else; I bucked up and finished the evening like a trooper, pausing to absorb each work of art that I encountered (although the port-o-john sensory garden was still kind of odd, and my resolve weakened in front of a giant slurpable pool of vodka in the middle of an office tower).
I don't know whether it was this year's exhibits, the different company, or whether I've just grown cranky in the years since that evening, but somehow this Saturday night seemed less special.
We traced our way from the AGO through downtown; detouring along Queen street before heading down Bay in order to grab a late-night subway train. Things started out well enough at the AGO. A Neil Young cover band provided inspiration to a group of dueling painters; Iron Chef for the artsy set, I guess.
At first, I thought the musical selections were inspired. I was less impressed by the second Neil Young cover band leading a sing-a-long outside Heintzmann House. This was the theme of the evening; to my untrained eye, a lot of the work seemed repetitive; all reflective surfaces and loud music and ambient sound effects and bright lights. We felt assaulted by art, rather than engaged by it. Prime City Hall real estate was taken up by a light show, some fog machines and, to quote one member of our party "the flying idiots" who rappelled from scaffold to scaffold, clutching awkward looking 'wings'. WWE puts on a better show; and you know who to cheer for.
Said fog and noise and lights were used to much better effect further down Bay Street, where searchlights followed us around an office courtyard like we were on the lam. For a kid who grew up on action movies, this was the best part of the evening-a chance to play.
The Eaton Centre's contribution was just kinda there; a series of panels designed to catch sunlight, but reduced to reflecting lightbulbs after the sun had set...perhaps a miscalculation given that this was an all night event set for October.
Roaming raves formed across the evening. I don't know why. Ditto for the drum set in the middle of the plastinated car. The Katy Perry inukshuks were pretty awesome, though.
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