In King’s Cross, people carried sticks of neon candyfloss. Fluorescent graffiti zigzagged across the ground. Granary Square became a giant screen for a light-show circus, with hybrid creatures cavorting on unicycles.
Some sights disclosed themselves slowly. Walking up Oxford Street it seemed that an enormous chiffon scarf was floating above the roofs. Pretty but only mildly surprising. Yet then the thing twisted, and changed. It turned inside out, sprouted a tail, became a paisley loop. It was like watching a chrysalis yield up its butterfly.
Artichoke, the company specialising in enormous free outdoor events, unzips and opens out a city in ways that have defeated politicians and town planners. It did so when it allowed the Sultan’s Elephant – the magnificent 42-ton puppet made by the Nantes-based Royal de Luxe – to amble through the streets. It did so when it enabled Royal’s giant spider to pick its way through Liverpool.
Lumiere, which has previously visited Durham and was in London for the first time, is different. Its installations of light, spread through the centre of the city, are separate explosions of beauty. They are created by 30 different artists and studios and not linked by a plot. Lumiere does not have the propelling force of the Elephant, which kept spectators on the move by obliging them to follow it; last weekend some of the lights had to be switched off at King’s Cross because of overcrowding.
The city itself became the story. Everything needed a second look. In Grosvenor Square, ordinary wooden benches were given a fluorescent glow – purple, blue, pink – which made those who perched on them seem both heavy and fuzzy. Across the way a Gilbert Scott telephone kiosk was converted into an aquarium, with milky water and shingle at the bottom. As fish nuzzled the receiver, they were made into characters by those who were looking, rather than stuck on the end of their selfie sticks. “I like the one with the red hat.” “Is that one dead?” “That’s just what I’m like in the morning.”
Above an arch at the end of traffic-less Regent Street a video showed an elephant, trunk swinging, ears flapping, with a trumpeting sound track. At the back, in Air Street, there was the elephant’s bum swaying as he strolled away. Down Piccadilly, huge whales, controlled by puppeteers, undulated in the air. The gentle rolling movement was so unexpected in this street of darting purpose that it unsettled – and moved.
Expectations were ruffled. Is that bright light part of a pattern? No, it’s the cherry-red wink of a crane. And that other silver sliver? Ah, I remember that. The moon. Hurrah for Artichoke. Surely its next move must be to bring from across the Channel La Révolte des Mannequins, the great Royal de Luxe thriller staged in shop windows.
