Sophilicity

So it's been a week since I attended this event, and I don't regret going! I had been meaning to go this event for a while, but unfortunately I was only about to attend 1/3 days of the event. Usually I'm rather organised but I was quite last minute this time... this led me to go on the final day of event... Opps. As someone who has a great interest in photography, I had to go - I'm not pro aha... I wish!

Wow I just released I forgot to actually mention the name of the event... Apologies! If you missed the title, I attended the "Lumiere London" last weekend. The festival has been held in Durham since 2009, and finally has been brought London this year. It is known to be the biggest light festival in the UK. Check out the trailer below:

Anyways, I was aiming to see as many attractions as I could but as we only had about 4 hours? It was quite difficult to try to go see everything so we aimed to go to the one's which were convenient. We actually completed the area twice. The second time was due an extra addition to our group so we decided to show her around but it was worth it! And we got to see a few extra attractions whilst we were at it aha.

When we originally started our adventure, we went without knowing where much of the attractions were. We began in Piccadilly Circus due to my friend, Katrina spotting one of the art pieces whilst she walked past the area. We went with the flow where if we saw something which seemed to be connected to Lumiere we would pull ourselves to the location. However, during our second trip around we managed to get a leaflet which gave us a map (as shown above) with all the different locations for the installations. 

Time to introduce my photography! I tried my best to capture the images throughout Central London, and I'm not gonna lie, it was rather cold... Trust the British weather... So our first place to go to was Piccadilly as I stated before. Here we encountered "Luminéoles" by Porté Par Le Vent. I remember when we were watching this, we were listening to the accompanying music which sounded rather magical - personally it reminded me of Harry Potter. Especially with the passing of Alan Rickman (RIP) I think the timing was rather suited to the situation.

Yeah... I might have gone a bit overboard with photos... And this isn't even all of them aha. My friends and I spent quite a while trying to work out what they were... from whales to fish to... some other inappropriate comments... We really wanted to try controlling them ourselves but we weren't allowed unfortunately. Those who were flying the fish were dressed specifically in white.

Moving on, we moved towards Regent Street, Oxford Street and Carnaby Street. We walked past an interesting site in which we ended up losing people in the crowd... There was a small box where you could view the exhibit. We hadn't quite left Piccadilly it seems, as we saw the "195 Piccadilly" by NOVAK.





From the website it states "195 Piccadilly explores the different genres of cinema and television using images from the BAFTA's Archives". I really liked the watercolour effect used to form an animation style art piece. Animated exhibits are really interesting to watch since I really like moving images - might explain my love for Japanese anime aha.

We moved towards Carnaby Street after finding one another through the crowd. But ended up seeing an elephant's ass. Well... Honestly I was rather confused... But then assumed the front of the elephant would be on the other side, however rather than walking through to see the other side we proceeded elsewhere.

Supposedly around the Soho area, Broadwick Street (which is opposite Carnaby Street) we found a illuminated walking woman. It was quite cool but I wasn't as interested as it looked rather plain in comparison to the others, but that's my personal opinion. I found someone standing next to me reporting about the piece, probably highlighting the Lumiere event. Here's a short clip of "Shaida Walking" by Julian Opie:


Apologies for the shakiness, I was aiming to try and get a video in action before the show ended. I didn't exactly want to wait for the next one since after walking past it again the performance is different. This one was rather dynamic and really intriguing to watch. However, I did manage to catch some images of the different stages of the lights appearing.



The next piece we saw happened to be interesting when you looked at it from different perspectives. When we first saw it from afar, we weren't too sure what it was. As we got closer we still didn't really know but what we saw was different when we stood right under the piece. We realised it was made of netting and once again some inappropriate comments were made - Katrina... The art was constantly changing in colour, and it was vibrant. I really liked this piece because of it's colour changing effect.








You can watch the process in which the colours change as I tried to take a picture of each of the stages of the colour transformation. As we moved closer to the art, as you can see the perception of the piece is different in comparison as we were standing right below.






Before I forget. This piece is called "1.8 London" by Janet Echelman / Studio Echelman. When I first heard the name of the exhibit I didn't really understand it's relevance. However, it seems the enormous net piece was based off the one of the most atonishing impacts of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. Due to this earthquake, it sped up the earth's rotation and shortened that day by 1.8 microseconds. Thus explaining the name given to this piece.

As walked back, we managed to see the front of the elephant. After seeing the elephant's ass, it was reassuring knowing the piece wasn't just it's ass... The piece is called "Eléphantastic!" by Top’là Design / Catherine Garret. The name is so creative ahaha, but I guess the name as a more understandable link in comparison to the others which I was confused about. But because I was confused I was more interested to find out the meaning behind the names. Here's a short clip of "Eléphantastic!" below:


We proceeded back through Oxford Circus and through Piccadilly before appearing in front of Leicester Square. At Leicester Square, I think I was most captivated by the lighting arrangement. There were so many lighting designs all in one area. The arrangement is called "Garden of Light" by TILT.
















The only thing I did regret was not going to see some of the light attractions located in King's Cross. There was an awesome rainbow lit tunnel called "Pipette" as well as "Litre of Light" which some of the Central Saint Martins' students contributed to creating.

I hope the Lumiere comes to London again! Since I totally want to try cover any of the light attractions I wasn't able to see this year. I hope you enjoyed my blog post, although I can say there is much more photography to words. For anymore information on Lumiere London, check out the Visit London website below:
http://www.visitlondon.com/lumiere

Thank you for reading, and I'll be sure to update soon on some more London events and attractions!

I've returned for the second part of my London exploration day with friends! As a Londoner, I feel that you should go to Winter Wonderland at least once in your lifetime - no it's not amazing and may possibly be overrated but the visuals are on pointe. Personally, I've been a couple of times but for various different reasons. For my most recent visit to Winter Wonderland, my aim was to get some awesome night photography. If you read my previous post, you would understand my love for night photography especially with lights. 

I'm a constant Instagrammer, I'm literally on Instagram everyday - which is probably really bad opps. But anyways, because of being on Instagram a lot, I always happen to see this one particular scene consecutively on my Instagram feed which happened to be taken at Winter Wonderland. So of course I thought I would take my own version of this picture too. Here it is:

Just entering Winter Wonderland we knew it was busy, with bag checks and long queues, it really shows how popular the event is. But if I'm honest, the food and drinks and even the rides available are rather expensive. From my previous experiences, I did go on quite a few rides, some of which were amazing, some made me really dizzy and some were rather anti-climatic and nothing special. 

I think the one thing I wanted to try and have wanted to for a long time, was churros. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get some this year because my friend, Charlotte and I were literally searching for slushies despite the cold weather. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try some at some point... Meanwhile, my friend, Cindy was also looking for her own particular drink that she always had when she attended Winter Wonderland; a winter cider from what I remember... She wasn't able to find it, but we did find some hot berry cider - which burnt my tongue opps... but it was really good, especially in the winter cold. 

We did come into a bit of a mishap during our Winter Wonderland experience, might explain Marco's done expression to be honest. But if you happen to be a photographer, I would recommend coming here to take photos especially later in the day when it's darker. The lights on the Christmas tree are shining, the lights from the different rides are illuminated and all the different places are lit to suit their own style. 

Although, I did have one problem with trying to get images of moving rides, I really should of changed the shutter speed to make it look better but I didn't really think about that at the time. Photographers would probably understand my struggles aha... I think by changing the shutter speed you can get quite an awesome effect for moving objects e.g. train passing through a station, or waterfall etc. If you have a DSLR camera, I would recommend you trying out that option. 

Personally I feel like Winter Wonderland is an experience you should try out once if you happen to be in Central London at the time, I've been at least 3 times so far. Unfortunately, Winter Wonderland only appears from around November to January, but specific dates would usually be specified on the Winter Wonderland website: http://www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com/

Each of the rides I happened to pass all had interesting names, I think one of the most relatable items I saw at Winter Wonderland was that one place was named Las Vegas, and then down the path was a place called Chinatown. These were either places to eat or rides (as you can probably tell... my memory is terrible but it just made me laugh because down the road from Chinatown in Central London there also happens to be an arcade called Las Vegas so it was an interesting coincidence.

I've always wanted the opportunity to explore London but I never really got the chance to. With my friendship group in London, we always stick to the same area, and after a while it does get a bit boring and tedious. Especially if we are doing the same thing over and over again. My usual hangout spot has to be Chinatown, since my majority of my friendship group are Asian. We always end up back to the same place, which is Las Vegas Soho Arcade. I love the place, since it's great for gaming but being there constantly makes you realise there isn't much to do other than game...

So since my friend, Ernest happened to be returning from Loughborough university, he brought along a couple of friends and his brother, Marco and we decided to explore before we met up with everyone else for dinner. For this blog post edition, I'm going to be focusing on the first part of the day.

We ventured off to Saatchi Gallery located by Sloane Square tube station (found on the Circle (yellow) and Distict (green) line). I've been meaning to visit this place, as an Instagrammer myself, I've seen many of my friends and people I follow on my feed attend this gallery. I've been to a couple of galleries before such as the National Gallery (located by Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross).

The first thing I saw when I got into the gallery was this...


I wasn't really sure what was going on if I'm honest, I think Marco mentioned the leaves being laminated to form art - I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a very arty person so I think I made more jokey comments than serious ones...


For some pieces, I thought they were actually rather interesting, like this complex design reminded me of circuits... But then again circuits remind me of science... And I can't exactly say I'm too fond of science... Excuse me science people RIP.

But I think for some rooms that we visited, I was really confused because from suddenly going from a light to dark room, and then seeing the art pieces become illuminated, it was really cool but the art was a bit creepy. An example would be this...



Like just the comment above written on the table already creeped me out... Like if I'm honest, I ain't about this life... As you can see just from reading this you'll realise my true personality for these particular things. Although I'm not gonna lie, anyone who had white on their clothes e.g. white strips on trainers etc. Those strips were illuminated as soon as they stepped into the room, it was a cool discovery but only worked inside the room.

Another experience in a dark room, included this one piece. So, Marco and I sat in a room by ourselves staring at the wall - trust me, we were really confused at first. As we were about to get up and leave, we noticed images forming on the dark wall, in the form of an animated sketch, we returned back to our seats and watched the animations progress. Rather different to the other art pieces we saw throughout the gallery. Inspirational I say aha.


Moving onto the funnier creations, we all saw this and thought, forget magic carpet, carpet on wheels - wouldn't that be an interesting way to travel aha. I was thinking back to a parody I watched of Twilight, called Vampire Sucks. Yeah I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty lame, like instead of flying they rode segways (opps spoiler if you haven't seen it but there's many other things about the movie which are lame and funny too aha). This could probably be used for a parody of Aladdin...

For this design, I actually really like the style, I was a Graphic student in secondary school so these kind of prints really interested me, and the way they were positioned were rather unique. Plus, each design was repeated so it was symmetrical in the design but the positioning was asymmetrical which is rather contradictory and ironic.



If I'm honest, as I continue writing about these pieces, I realise there's quite a lot of things which come to mind in each of these pieces, which I guess is the point. Art makes you think about things, whether it reminds you about something, emotions, a memory, it just goes to show... Although these aren't all pictures, I understand more about the idiom "A picture is worth a thousand words".

The same applies for this art piece, although my friends and I couldn't help but laugh that although it was rather cool with the lights and the different colours for each design, it was just funny to realise they were all rice cookers. Being the typical Asians and our household ware, we joked about how much rice we could make with these rice cookers aha.

Before I begin, I would just like to wish everyone a very happy new year!
As of 2016, I hope to attend many more events and review them for you on my blog, but I hope for everyone they are granted great fortune and good health for this year!

To kick things off, we have a special K-Pop concert coming up next month, LOEN Entertainment's first boy group, HISTORY.
Personally for me, I don't believe this group gets enough recognition for their music. So how about a bit of history on HISTORY (I tried).


HISTORY are a five-member South Korean boy group formed by LOEN Entertainment. They debuted on the 26th of April 2013. For their debut song, Dreamer, their fellow labelmate, IU was featured as a narrator. Other than Dreamer, they have also produced many songs including: Might Just Die, Psycho, What am I to you, Tell Me Love and LOST (Japanese ver.)

Dreamer ft. IU:
https://youtu.be/zM5GpSPGk-Y
Might Just Die:
https://youtu.be/bCyys9JqOGI
Might Just Die (Performance Ver.):
https://youtu.be/Sa7QfiKGvfk
Psycho:
https://youtu.be/yJDc5vYw_UE
Psycho (Performance Ver.):
https://youtu.be/-3NuSt7XBxk
What am I to you:
https://youtu.be/sYY_rV78pLk
Tell Me Love:
https://youtu.be/zeUEOxTd8IE
LOST (Japanese Ver.):
https://youtu.be/ThQdZvxgpkE

My favourites would have to be Might Just Die and Psycho. I appreciated the concept they chose for each of these music videos and the music itself was a worthwhile listen. However, as a K-pop listener, I always feel it's necessary to learn the names of the members. For this group we have: Kyungil (Leader, Rapper, Sub-Vocalist), Dokyun (Main Vocalist), Sihyoung (Rapper), Jaeho (Rapper, Sub-Vocalist) and Yijeong (Main Vocalist, Maknae). A maknae refers to the youngest in the group in Korean. For now, that's enough history...


 Na Do-kyun (나도균)

Song Kyung-il (송경일)

 Jang Yi-jeong (장이정)

Kim Jae-ho (김재호)

Fortunately I can say that they have been granted a European tour this year. Venturing from Helsinki (Finland) to Paris (France) to finally London (United Kingdom). This is definitely one of the concerts you should be looking for this year! Especially to the K-Pop lovers out there!

So what is the key information to know for this upcoming concert in London?

Ticket sales start begin at 8AM on the Thursday the 7th of January 2016

There are two ticket types available:

Standard: £35

VIP (Meet & Greet + Early Entry): £95

But we can't forget the essential details for the day of the concert...

Where? O2 Academy2 Islington, London

When? Doors open at 5PM, show starts at 6PM, Meet & Greet starts around 7:45PM

The Meet & Greet + Early Entry ticket however is limited. It grants early access to the venue as well as entry to the Meet & Greet event. For the event, you are given the opportunity to meet the HISTORY members as well as having a picture taken with them. This ticket cannot be exchanged and is not refundable. It is essential to bring ID with you to enter the venue. The Meet & Greet event, it will consist of a handshake as well as a picture taken in groups of 10 people at a time.

For more information on the event please go to:

http://www.arpeggiosent.com/ 

This link allows you to purchase tickets for the HISTORY concert and also outlines any other details which I have excluded from this blog post. 

Also, don't forget to join the Facebook page if you haven't already for the HISTORY concert in London, whether you're interested or going:

HISTORY (히스토리) London Concert Event Page

Thank you very much, and I hope to see you guys at the HISTORY concert, it definitely isn't an opportunity to miss! Remember to look out for my upcoming posts, I'll be reviewing concerts, events and much more, with possible giveaways in the future! 

*Credits to Arpeggios Entertainment for information and images.