White Night 2015

The nights have grown earlier, longer, and darker, signalling the end of summer and the ever-damp autumn entering the city streets. It is precisely at this time in September that, for the tenth year running, the events of the contemporary culture forum White Night take place in Riga. We have been fellow walkers in this performance-lit darkness since 2008. Each time this night is different - a different audience, different emphases, a different white light.

This year the impression arose that great emphasis was placed on cinema. Art films were shown at Spīķeri and on the wall of the Saeima building, documentary cinema at the contemporary arts centre kim?, and vertical cinema at the restored concert hall "Rīga" in the Academy of Sciences building.

The last was something new and fresh for Riga audiences, though the material dates from 2013. On a fairly large vertically placed screen, 10 m tall and 4.5 m wide, 10 experimental films were projected over 90 minutes. Black-and-white, colourful, with both flowing and strictly contained spaces, constant motion, and sound ranging from quiet to ear-drum-straining thunderous at maximum volume - surprising, unpleasant, metallic, breaking through the concrete wall. The only description that comes to mind: a defect with an aftereffect.

Before that, a visit to the Beer Museum at Aldaris (the first stop). Before heading home, a stroll among the light figures at Dome Square - the performance was closer in feel to a Staro Rīga event than to the usual White Night, though light in the dark city can never be too much.