5 things you must see at i Light Marina Bay 2014

This year, I was invited as online media to check out the preview of i Light Marina Bay 2014. Touting itself as the world’s only sustainable light festival, the theme for this 3rd edition in Singapore is light+heART, and from 7 – 30 March 2014, the Marina Bay waterfront area will be lit up every evening with a whole array of interactive light installations and artworks.

We didn’t get a chance to see all the installations that surround the entire Marina bay, mostly we checked out some of the key highlights on Marina Bay Floating Platform from a boat tour, and then took a walk along the Promontory area for the rest.

If you follow me @jac_theocctrav on Instagram, you’ll probably have seen some of these pix already, posted while I was walking around the installations. But for those who haven’t, here are 5 of my picks for the i Light festival 2014. There are lots more to see than this 5 of course, but if you only have a little bit of time, here are some which I loved:

Most Impressive Otherworldly Sight:

1.26 Singapore by Janet Echelman

Marina Bay Floating Platform

They were just testing the lights on this installation when we did the preview from the boat, but already it’s an impressive sight, a large and intricately 3-dimensional woven piece suspended in the air with peaks and troughs from all sides, like the Seismic chart. I would love to see it up close. It’s unusual name is inspired by the Chilean earthquake of 2010, which shortened each day by 1.26 microseconds

Head to the floating platform to get a real up-close look at this piece – you can walk right under it, and please don’t be like this guy I saw, who stood underneath it and threw his shoe up at it to see if it was soft or hard – this is how art gets destroyed!

 

Most random fun to play with:

Cloud

Marina Bay Floating Platform

This cloud is made up of over 6000 used light bulbs, which you can turn on and off by pulling on a string below it. It’s quite fun just walking underneath and pulling switches on and off at random and seeing what gets triggered! Somehow in my head, this is like a giant rainmaker of sorts, who knows maybe it’ll trigger our dry clouds…

 

Most Likely to Entertain Your Kids For A Good While:

The Pool by Jen Lewin Studio

Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade (Near the Promontory)

Most of the i Light installations are very interactive, but located just beyond the Savour food tents is this rather alien looking group of glowing pods in The Pool that change colour when you step on them. Let your children loose here, and they’ll happily go crazy hopping about this work as they try to figure out how to make the lights change colours, which is dependent by the number of people and how they activate the sensors!

 

Most well camouflaged:

Happy Croco by Bibi

Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade

I walked past this in the day time, a heap of traffic cones and tape on the floor, not knowing what it was. Little did I know that at night, this crocodile would suddenly emerge. It’s a simple idea, but one of my favourites just because it’s so darn cute.

 

Most Instagrammable:

Celebration of Life by Justin Lee with Dorier Asia Pte Ltd

ArtScience Museum

See the usually white lotus petals of the ArtScience museum transform into a movie screen by local Singaporean artist Justin Lee – you’ll recognize some of his more iconic Asian pop-art pieces flash in a larger than life video montage set against a very picturesque Marina Bay skyline. Head on over to the Helix Bridge viewing platforms for the best view of this work!

I’m definitely headed back to the i Light Marina Bay festival later in the month to check out more of the activities – these 5 are just a few of the many, many exhibits and activities planned this month! Check out the full calendar of activities here. For more updates from me, stay tuned to my Instagram @jac_theocctrav

Also, thanks to i Light Marina Bay for this fun media gift that really brings home the message about sustainability – it’s a rather DIY looking lamp made up out an LED light bulb, tissue paper and corrugated cardboard!