Norbert the Nautilus and his vivid Chatswood friends

Sydney's Vivid festival comes round at about this time every year. It started as a light show, then a sound-and-light show, and this year it's billed as a festival of light, sound, and ideas!

I even went to one of the 'ideas' events the other evening. It was a talk at Sydney University about the 'inhuman' photography of the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. His pictures were OK, but the 'art-appreciation' bullshit that got spoken by the presenter and by the handful of enthusiastic questioners remaining in the much-dwindled audience - gosh, not an ounce of meaning could I find in any of it!










So let's get back to the good old light show! It's expanded this year, and now takes in several new venues. One of these is Chatswood.





I went along last night to check it out, and yes, it's not a bad little light show. You don't have to be pretentious if you're just a light show. It seemed to be all about aquariums and marine molluscs like the nautilus. A nautilus called

Norbert was featured prominently, and he had friends who were jellyfish, or were young ladies in brightly coloured lycra costumes.

All very colourful, and all good fun. It got the crowds out in Chatswood on a cold Saturday night, and there should probably be more of it!