Night On Fire, BlackBerry Shots, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Original BlackBerry photo June 2011, part of Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche.
Northern Spark 2012 begins next weekend in the Twin Cities at dusk on Saturday, June 9th and ends at the crack of dawn, Sunday, June 10th. Northern Spark is a free, dusk to dawn, participatory arts festival that presents visual arts, performance, films, and interactive media. Tonight at the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis we plan to attend the Pre-Spark Bridge Lighting where planners will flip the switch for Northern Spark’s signature artwork, Robin Schwartzman’s THINK AND WONDER, WONDER AND THINK. They will also be giving out festival guidebooks to preview before June 9.
Last year’s inaugural Northern Spark was magical. In 2011, over the course of the night, there were 50,000 visits to 100 projects by more than 200 mostly local artists at 34 venues in collaboration with 60 partner organizations and sponsors. I have listed a few of the places we visited in 2011 and a little history of the Nuit Blanche (“white night”) movement in the piece Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche.
The three photographs in this piece were taken while I was standing in the middle of Jim Campbell’s Scattered Light installation, part of Northern Spark 2011. In Annotated Artwork: The Making Of Jim Campbell’s ‘Scattered Light‘, Jim says moving from 2-D to 3D art is about “exploding an image, tearing it apart, and spreading it out.” His tips: 1. Pick a spot 2. Grab Source Material 3. Turn it into code 4. Create depth 5. Consider the planet. Honoring point 5, he and his assistants revamped thousands of standard lightbulbs, sawed them open, stuffed them with LEDs, and glued them back together, making handmade, unique, energy-efficient hybrids.
I am looking forward to Northern Spark 2012. At the Northern Spark website, there is a Planning Your Night page with a full list of events, including a link to download their new Northern Spark mobile app. We’ve already got ours loaded on our Androids. I only hope there is enough time to make all the events we’ve listed. It’s perfect for all of our fellow NightOwls! Hope to see our local readers there! If you can’t make it, you can follow Northern Spark on their Facebook page and at Twitter @Northern_Spark #NSPK.
Out Of The Darkness (L), #NorthernSpark – Scattered Light by Jim Campbell 23/52 (R), BlackBerry Shots, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Original BlackBerry photos June 2011, part of Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, June 2nd, 2012
-related to posts: Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche, Suspended In Light (Reprise), Insomnia Haiku: Counting Syllables In My Sleep, Mickey’s Night Owl Sandwich, Dreams Of A Creative Insomniac
Liz & I had an amazing time at the Pre-Spark event last night at the Stone Arch Bridge! Think & Wonder. Wow, the Moon was rising, the weather was perfect. Will try to get a set of photos posted and link here. Can’t wait for Northern Spark next weekend. I hope the weather is like this weekend. Perfect to be outside and light up the night, Nuit Blanche style!
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QM,
I’ve missed your posts, but excited when I find a new one. In a way, I like the surprise of it, not knowing when something new will appear. I love these photographs and wish I could come for that festival. Perhaps I should put it on my calendar for one of these upcoming years. It looks amazing. I don’t think we have anything like this in Seattle.
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Teresa, you are kind. Thank you for putting a positive spin on my posting schedule. It’s fun to be back. I am feeling more energy for writing lately. More has gone into my art this year. It would be so much fun if you ventured to Minneapolis for Northern Spark one year. This is only the second year for the Twin Cities. I had such a great experience with it last year, that I am looking forward to this Saturday.
I was telling Liz, I have to get more sleep before then though! It’s really hard to stay up all night. I can make it until about 3am, and start to fade. It’s fun to be outside with other art lovers in community at a time when most people are sound asleep. I’ll come back and let you know how it goes at Northern Spark. Yes! come and see us!
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Was fun to see your tweets from Northern Spark. Sounded like a most fulfilling time!
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Northern Spark was fantastic. I was telling Liz this evening that I think my biorhythms are messed up after last weekend. I’m in NightOwl mode this week which makes work tough some days. I still hope to get my photos downloaded into a set on Flickr. Ending the night at the top of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis was magical. I’d never been up there before. To see the sunrise from 30 stories up — inspirational! I heard next year it will be in St. Paul.
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[…] Spark kicks off on Saturday, June 8th, at 8:58pm in Lowertown St. Paul, Minnesota. This will be our third year attending Northern Spark (a little history of the Nuit Blanche movement in this piece). Last year we stayed […]
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[…] to posts: Northern Spark — Twin Cities Nuit Blanche, Northern Spark 2012 – Night Owl Paradise, Northern Spark — Sunrise To […]
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