The capital's 701st birthday will be celebrated on January 25-28. the program of the inviting Vilnius Light Festival includes 15 light installations and 5 additional objects in various spaces of the old town, world-famous light art stars and talents from five countries, unique light reflections and vivid experiences.
"During the cold season, when we can so rarely enjoy sunlight, the Vilnius Festival of Lights allows you to immerse yourself in the creative world of colors, culture, art and technology, and get new ideas for yourself and the city. Event has become a symbolic place for celebrating the capital's birthday, so I invite everyone to come together already on January 25. to enter a new century of Vilnius history", says the mayor of Vilnius Valdas Benkunskas.
Festival of lights in the historical center of growing Vilnius in the old town January 25-28 will create new, unusual stories and invite you to immerse yourself in the dynamic world of light art for the sixth year in a row. The four-night festival of light in Vilnius is an opportunity once a year in the capital to get acquainted with the variety of works of famous contemporary artists and unique forms of light art, which change the city's spaces, highlight the beauty and cultural depth of historical buildings, honor and give a new perspective to the city's symbols, and enrich visitors with new experiences.
"When creating the program and in order to present the most relevant creators of light festivals and their works, we develop cultural ties with various festivals of the world and Western Europe, we look for new talents, interesting projects, we analyze the prevailing trends. Over the past few years, we have presented more than 90 unique light installations and creators from as many as 18 countries around the world to Vilnius residents and city guests. We notice that we are appreciated not only in Lithuania, but also in other countries due to the diversity of the high-quality program," says Paulius Jurgutis, the director of the event's organizer, the Vilnius Cultural Center, thanking the festival's fans for their support and the opportunity to continue the special tradition of the city of Vilnius.
The program includes 20 unique stories - 15 light installations and 5 additional objects
We recommend starting the festive walk and searching for objects of the festival program and new experiences from the Art Printing House (Šiltadaržio St. 6) located next to Bernardinė Garden, where the "Ksawery Komputery" studio of the Polish artist Ksawery Kirklewski, known as the genius of digital creation, will offer to think about the influence of modern technologies on the possibilities of the speed of human communication. interactive light installation FLUX. The impressive parameters project will create an immersive experience that will reveal the hidden algorithms that shape our online encounters at the speed of light.
The Art Printing House will also exhibit the work of the French artist Guillaume Marmin, who explores the relationship between light, sound and space, for which the composer Phillipe Giordiani created the music track - the installation HARA. The impressive projection of light matter, inspired by the Japanese concept of hara, which means the belly and the source of human vital energy and emotions, will stir the audience's senses and provoke internal conversations about the essence of life and the infinity of the universe.
The installation CONTINUUM by the British duo "Illumaphonium" invites you to walk through the labyrinth of light and reflections of 2,5 mirror monoliths 25 meters high in the courtyard of the Republic of Lithuania. The audience's imagination will be stimulated by an interactive luminescent sound artwork that creates a sense of infinite space and all-encompassing sound.
Visitors will see the CELESTIAN BRAINSTORM installation by Amelia Kosminsky from Great Britain in the courtyard of the Vilnius Picture Gallery. The term "brainstorm" is used in English to describe an attack and a moment of intense thinking or creativity. The artist, who grew up with flickering light-sensitive epilepsy, wants to draw public attention to mental health issues with her work. She was inspired by the effect of light on the brain - flashing lights can both mesmerize with their beauty and trigger a seizure at the same time. The interactive installation simulates a rotating, dark-dispersing lamp, creating an enchanting and calming effect of a constantly moving starry sky.
Another installation in the courtyard of the Vilnius Picture Gallery will involve viewers in the search for the boundaries between reality and virtuality. This is the creation of CRYSTALLIZED by the French creative studio Theoriz, which loves complex projects, and is proposed to be viewed as a new form of entertainment that evokes deep emotions. Created from steel, sound and holographic images, the mysterious structure, inspired by the unique and visually striking element bismuth (Bi) - prized by scientists and collectors alike for its unusual crystalline structure and vibrant colors - will constantly change form from atom to liquid to crystal.
What is this day? Are we part of the message for the future? - The ARTEFAKTAS installation by VJ Tomas Stonis and electronic music producer Olivier Ondi will provoke an inner monologue in the tower square.
The famous British collective "Architecture Social Club" Bokšto st. 17 will present the new installation PARALLELS in yard. It is an architectural light and sound experiment inspired by the movements and tones of the natural environment, during which the audience will enter a dynamic space of animated light created from thousands of laser beams. British electronic and techno music producer Max Cooper created the soundtrack for it.
An intriguing hypertunnel created by the creator of video installations Rimos Sakalauskas and his assistants director Žilvinas Vingelis and composer Dominykos Digimos will open in the courtyard of the Vilnius Jesuit Gymnasium, which will transport festival visitors to an alternative Vilnius - Vilnius in space. The unique installation VILNIUS 700 – KOSMOSO VILNIUS will offer you to immerse yourself in the fictional documentary genre.
Between St. Igno Urba's installation ANALOG FLUORESCENCE in the educational media center "Lajoteka" founded by the Kazimierz Church and the Vilnius Jesuit High School will encourage you to think about the constantly occurring technological and cultural changes, the transience of the modern world and nostalgically remember how many inventions we have already experienced. The visually immersive experience is a symbolic monument of light and sound to the technological recluse, the fluorescent light bulb, which has been banned from being imported into the European Union.
The oldest baroque Vilnius St. Kazimierz Church, illuminated by the enchanting DIPTIKAS video installation of the design studio "Video Architects", playing with light and darkness, music and images, spaciousness and unseen forms, pace and video animation, will tell its magnificent story.
Those traveling along the festival route will find the enchanting installation SOLEIL NUIT MIZAR in the pedestrian alley of Vokiečiai Street, designed and created by French dance and theater lighting designer Sébastien Lefèvre and wind and natural light. The composition in the impressionist style, one side of which is the "sun" - will change during the day along with the light coming through the clouds, and the other side - the "night" - will become a shining star after dark, will invite you to admire the dance of multi-colored mirror reflections.
The FIREFLY FIELD light installation of the multidisciplinary design studio "Teor" from the Netherlands, which imitates fireflies flying in the yard of the S. Nėries Gymnasium, will arouse the curiosity of both young and old visitors to the festival. The project, which has visited many countries, aesthetically conveys the influence of dynamic light on the mood.
The French artist couple Gregory Lasserre & Anais met den Ancxt, known as "Scénocosme", will offer to become part of their unique tactile and sound interactive installation URBAN LIGHTS CONTACTS in the courtyard of the Lithuanian Theater, Music and Cinema Museum. A sensorial work of art, in which the bodies of the viewers turn into real sounding instruments, questions the perception of the closeness of another person.
St. In St. Catherine's Church, this time a completely interactive kinetic light installation FLUX by the collective from Paris "Collectif Scale" will create an exceptional experience. The architecture of the object consisting of rotating dynamic lines of light, together with the music, will form a "living", original robotic sculpture whose movements, light and sound will be intuitively controlled by the audience.
Stage design and light artist Philippe Morvan, who exhibited the installation "Menschen" in Vilnius last year, returns to the festival. This year, we will see the carpet of light created from recycled materials - the installation DOT - in the courtyard of the Teacher's House. In a piece specially adapted for Vilnius, the light of incandescent lamps will dance a cosmic dance against the background of Lithuanian sutra songs.
Among the remaining five additional objects of the festival is the Tourist Information Center (Pilies st. 2), which will invite you to celebrate together the 701st birthday of Vilnius and every day of the festival from 18 p.m. in the shop windows of the center you can admire the installation VILNIUS STIKLE, where the usual symbols of the city and masterpieces of Vilnius architecture will take on an unconventional and playful form.
To make sure whether a piano without a pianist is really just a piece of furniture and what its real concert and musical potential is, the Kosmos Theater audiovisual experiment theater project - the sound and light installation BALDAS - will invite you to the Art Printing House.
It is not the first time that performances by young artists are included in the festival program. This time In Užupi, on Jonas Mekos Skersvės path, the exhibition of students of the Vilnius Academy of Arts will flirt with light, THE SECRETS OF LIGHT, which will be crowned by the artistic light installation "Tail of the Crosswind" by the Dutch creator Sije Verskis.
The ongoing festival of light will also be announced by the installations that have become a festival tradition and business card - the tower of Gediminas Castle will be decorated with a bright crown of light, the renewed work of light artist Arvydas Buinauskas THE INVITATION and On the Cathedral Square the sword of the monument to the founder of the city of Vilnius, the Grand Duke Gediminas of the LDK, the work of Kypris Krasauskas NŪDIENOS GEDIMINAS, will shine.
A mobile app will guide you along the route
The mobile app will help visitors to conveniently and interactively view the event program, plan their route and find all the attractions of the festival. It can be downloaded or updated from the App Store http://bit.ly/vilniuslightfestival or Google Play http://bit.ly/vilniuslightfestival1.
K. Sirvydas Square is a space for respite and gastronomy
Take a breather, enjoy hot drinks, quench your hunger and discuss new experiences on January 25-28. Vilnius residents and guests of the city will be able to go to the capital's K. Sirvydas Square, also known as "Francispark", where from 17 p.m. until 23 p.m. the restaurant-on-wheels space will be open.
VI Vilnius Light Festival - 2024 January 25-28, from 18 to 23 p.m.
