I rarely have cause to go to Gertrude Street, so I’m always a little surprised by the range of shops and buildings there.

This was a mostly pleasant evening to walk up and back, although there was a slight drizzle and I wasn’t wearing warm shoes. That was not enough to diminish the enjoyment of the projections and illuminations, of which there was also a great range, from small static pieces in windows through video animations up to the projections onto the east face of the housing commission towers.

There were really two sorts of work: the ones that are animated, video, stuff happens; and the ones that are fields of coloured light, sometimes with movement, but much less like video art than the others. The best of this second sort took advantage of the architecture of the building they were projected on to. They were fantastic, partly because of the sheer scale of them.

The video art pieces were on the whole very good. I am a bit skeptical about the medium and some did fall into the trap of being random animation, but most are well beyond that and use the movement/time lapse aspects of the medium effectively. There were a couple that I could have watched for ages.

It is well worth going out to look at them. And it’s fun to work out where they are being projected from as well.