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Our family ventured out at sundown last Saturday evening to experience the new Northern Spark Art Festival at the Upper Landing Park, situated along the Mississippi River in Downtown Saint Paul. The festival took place from dusk to dawn and featured 100 art installations along the river in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. It was a beautiful, early summer evening and a large crowd was on hand to experience several exhibits, most notably, Scattered Light by renowned media artist Jim Campbell. Although unveiled as a part of the one day (or night) festival, the exhibit is on display through July 24, 2011.

Scattered Light features more than 1,600 LEDs housed in standard light bulbs suspended within a huge support structure 80 feet in length, 20 feet high, and 16 feet deep. It creates a shower of light that is very cool to experience from a number of angles; including walking around within the grid of lights (I believe this opportunity was only available the night of the festival). The LED bulbs are programmed so that, depending on a viewer’s vantage point, they “play back” in very low resolution a video of commuters in Grand Central Station, though that is difficult to decipher to the untrained eye.

Our kids, and dozens of others in attendance, were fascinated by the exhibit, as well a number of additional exhibits on display as a part of the festival at Upper Landing Park: ArtCars of Minnesota, and Wind-harps, Wind flutes, and an incredible Sewer Pipe Organ. Another highlight was to be the appearance of Nightmare, a large, floating video screen that gives the allusion of a horse galloping on the river, but the exhibit was delayed by more than 30 minutes and the clock ran out on our outing before we could see it.

The event must have been a giant undertaking; other than the delay of Nightmare, it seemed well organized and generated a lot of excitement on at Upper Landing Park.  

Obviously, Scattered Light is intended to be seen at night. Considering sundown is around 9pm this time of year, this can be past bedtime for younger kids. But, if you are willing to endure potentially crabby behavior the next day, a visit to this exhibit and Upper Landing Park is well worth it. For more information on Scattered Light and the Northern Spark festival, go to northernspark.org.