White Night 2009

White Night in Riga (12–13 September) was this year reasonably warm (around 15 degrees above zero) and full of curious observers and contemporary art performances. The already autumnal darkness of night allows one to play with illusions created by coloured light and to see by blinking your ears, since "people, by blinking their eyes (coating the eyeball with fluid from the lacrimal glands), lose approximately 23 minutes of visual information every day".

This year we were not such avid night wanderers; the art space was also concentrated more in the city centre itself, rather than having spread as far as Pārdaugava's Arkādija Park as it did last year. Some venues and performances were a repeat of the previous year: music and film projections in the Small Guild's mini garden; also airy puppets of white and black fabric and fire jugglers, this time only in Bastejkalns; open-air cinema in Vērmaņdārzs. The last of these drew nearly every seat fully occupied this year and was the one that stayed most with me personally. The credit for that goes, I think, precisely to the successful choice of film. This time - the film "Le Bal" (1983) - without a word, only an all-expressive mime performance, sharp observations in a dance hall that reflect the eternal theme of the search for love. Hmm - it will have to be tracked down online and watched in full.

But we began our route from the 11 November Embankment, where, remarkably, we still found a parking spot and where quite nearby Dutch artist Erik Hobijn's "Chemistry Bar" had been set up. The installation-performance functioned as a real bar in which you could order a drink - only from a test tube, slightly bluish and steaming. The more curious and the braver ones, of course, also sampled the artist's and his assistant's chemical concoctions. In any case, quite a crowd had gathered around the bar. I had difficulty getting to the drinks menu, on the reverse of which were instructions on how to properly consume the drinks served.

On then to "Riga Art Space" - there the coloured-dot distributors at the entrance were reminiscent of Museum Night, images (or rather, shadows) flashing past one's eyes, sounds past one's ears. Alongside, an exhibition about Riga's housing estates and the percentage distribution of residents in concrete matchboxes. The Latvian mentality was not made for such communal dwellings (he is a loner), yet within him lies a great predisposition to adapt and submit to pressure. And in the Soviet years, this tendency flourished magnificently. And so here we are - in matchboxes.

At Riga Circus Arena tonight - videography: an interplay of light beams, ever-changing screens, and non-conventional music. If this were Amsterdam, where one can light up a certain kind of smoke, one could drift quite far from reality in one's thoughts. At least the arena floor was floating.

When we made our way back, the improvised inflatable Lenin was not yet standing in stately blue magnificence opposite the Cabinet of Ministers building. Still too early - all that still lay ahead...