Last Saturday I headed to the Santa Monica pier (at about 11:30pm) to check out Glow, the light-and-technology art/music festival put together on the beach.

Some of the art was kind of cool but in retrospect I’m beginning to believe that the event itself was the real art piece, featuring up to 44,000 people (that’s not a typo) wandering the beach and surrounding area looking for light and color, both of which there seemed to be tragically less of than anticipated. There were some cool perspective-bending “exhibits,” to be sure, but the event was made far more of an extravaganza by the swarms of people stumbling around in varyious states of intoxication. As one confused visitor put it, “There’s like 3,000 people down there praying to a #$*&@*% lava lamp!”

Parking was a nightmare, of course. From what I read, this event will be attempted again in a couple years. Hopefully by then some of the kinks will be smoothed out.


Gnarly crowds, this is a pedestrian bridge crossing Coast Highway at 1am.
Contrary to what it looks like, watching this lady maneuver her “bioluminescent lightstrings,” looks a lot like this image; the light trails were also visible to the naked eye—a bit like seeing this picture in 3-D.


Glow


Muscle beach in the Glowlight


This was about the time somebody walked right up to me and asked point blank whether I had any acid. Needless to say a good number of the people in attendance were enjoying the event on a far different level.


I called this the “glowstick graveyard.”


Really cool creations hanging beneath the pier, made out of lights, mechanized parts, and plastic bags that inflated and deflated making them look like some bizarre robotic jellyfish.

Glow on, L.A. But next time leave me somewhere to park!
~Molly, Luminaire Images