and midnight on the exterior of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and in adjacent Washburn Fair Oaks Park. Two other University of Minnesota art faculty members, Jenny Schmid and Ali Momeni, have cooked up an elaborate participatory light show that will play out between 10 p.m. It's something that could be positive, a symbol of hope, but the title 'Nightmare' is also an omen of something darker." "The horse is very ghostlike, and I'm working off ideas of what a white horse means in various cultures, to Native Americans, in Revelations and elsewhere.
"From afar - an apartment or condo or the bluff - you question your own eyes did you really see this thing or not?" Stanislav mused recently. She's been working on the project for several years and hopes eventually to run the horse the whole length of the Mississippi, from Minneapolis to New Orleans, where it would "hold a memory of Katrina as a memorial project." Technically the "horse" would consist of a high-definition video image on a 10-foot-tall screen on a barge propelled by a tugboat that would disappear in the darkness. She plans to create the illusion that a white horse is running on the water. Other events range from high-tech sights to funky, down-home games.Īndréa Stanislav's "Nightmare" is a new video project that the University of Minnesota sculpture professor will be testing on the Mississippi near the Stone Arch Bridge, assuming the river is not too turbulent. Paul and plans to use the city's sewers and storm drains as a really big pipe organ.įrom its berth on nearby Harriet Island, the Jonathan Padelford riverboat will play host to a "Floating Chautauqua," blending artistic and scientific presentations. Blackburn also has installed wind-harp sculptures in downtown St. Paul - at the Upper Landing near Shepard Road - a "Car Horn Fanfare" coordinated by Philip Blackburn and ArtCars of Minnesota will precede a "Scattered Light" show involving more than 1,600 LEDs and regular bulbs by San Francisco-based artist Jim Campbell. Deborah Miller will project photos onto the nearby Gold Medal Flour silos and Diane Willow promises to coax a "mesmerizing glow" from bioluminescent plankton as Osman Khan throws a laser canopy over St. composer Chris Kallmyer will lead 100-plus musicians (drums, brass, woodwinds and tin whistles) in a performance inspired by the Mississippi. The Minneapolis shindig kicks off at the Stone Arch Bridge, where from 8:55 to 9:15 p.m.
There's a lot of creative energy in people here, so let's enjoy it for a night."įestivities start at sundown Saturday (8:55 p.m.) and end at sunrise Sunday (5:28 a.m.). "This recognizes the kind of vitality that people from New York, Boston or L.A.
"People new to the Twin Cities are shocked that the city rolls up its streets at 9 p.m." said Steve Dietz, founding director of .Ī former new-media curator at the Walker, Dietz, 52, has spent the past six years organizing midsummer-night fests for San Jose, Calif. It's more of an up-from-the-underground effort by a bunch of quasi-subversive techies to conquer the night, claim the cities as their own, and party. High-profile locales including Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Landmark Center are involved, but Northern Spark is not institution-centric.