A stroll around Enchanted City, Newcastle's winter newcomer

Artists light up a city campus

Novas from Studio Vertigo - a cosmic visitation

Ahead of the official public debut of Enchanted City, Newcastle City Council’s new winter attraction in collaboration with Northumbria University, it fell to me to boldly go… from City Streets to Cosmic Skies.

That’s the theme of this year’s inaugural event which sees much of the university’s Newcastle city centre campus become a sort of adventure playground for light-seeking ticket-holders.

What would I find on a dark but mercifully tranquil Wednesday evening, a last chance for artists and technicians to test things before lift-off?

Well, the first thing I found was the entrance, a frankly unmissable archway on the Northumberland Road pedestrian precinct near the City Hall.

‘EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE DROP OFF’ stated the sign over the entrance… and beyond it I glimpsed a colourful riot of stuff – coats and colourful swirls of material artfully arranged by sculptor Lady Kitt – along with people in woolly hats decorated with fairy lights.

Ah-ha, I thought, this looks very much like Unfolding Theatre. And there, indeed, was Annie Rigby, founding artistic director of the Newcastle theatre company which has turned public engagement into an artform.

Annie Rigby at the entrance to Clear the Way

This, she explained, was Clear the Way, a riff on her ground-breaking Night Classes production which set audiences on a mission to explore self-sufficiency and interdependence.

“Think,” began the first of a list of instructions on a blackboard. “What do you want to leave behind?”

I was to write the nature of my particular emotional baggage on a luggage label with a piece of chalk and leave it here before proceeding.

And I wasn’t the first, even on this sparsely populated preview night with the ‘crowd’ largely comprising students drifting home, to remark that the label didn’t look big enough.

Ready and willing to ease your mind in Clear the Way

And all the while, one of the woolly hatted attendants was explaining about the Kessler Syndrome, dreamt up by one of those NASA scientists who specialise in new ways of alarming us.

Having therefore been relieved of my emotional baggage and given something else to worry about, I wandered off into the night – or in fact what’s actually a fairly well-illuminated campus.

Up the side of a building to my right was a tall, ever-changing projection, multi-coloured hoops and then green strands twisting and turning: a piece called SIGNAL by the NOVAK creative studio.

NOVAK’s unmissable installation, SIGNAL

There was also a fabulous glowing sphere lodged on the façade of one of the campus’s older buildings, and a ladder leading up to it (courtesy of Studio Vertigo).

If the ladder’s still there tonight, it means it’s actually part of the installation rather than a technician’s aid.

Two funny wheeled contraptions were coming towards me, piloted from within by black-clad operatives and with brightly-lit star-gazing puppets up top.

I know the work of Moving Parts Art when I see it, as you will if you’ve attended Newcastle Puppetry Festival.

Inside the contraptions, a mash-up of medieval and futuristic, I found Kent-based puppet-maker Judith Hope, up here in the North East for another fantastical adventure, and local puppeteer Matt Tatwood who explained that these were the Starmongers.

Here come the Starmongers

They were part of a community project and, come the real event, people would be invited to drop wishes into a basket to then be lifted heavenwards.

I walked past one of Amy Lord’s ubiquitous Horoscope Hotel sculptural creations, made with fine art students, that will divulge your horoscope at the press of a button, and on to an epic projection at the end of the road.

This awe-inspiring spectacle is Mind & Matter, the work of Bristol-based Limbic Cinema.

Planets incoming, courtesy of Limbic Cinema

“As light, sound and science intertwine, the architecture becomes a gateway through time and space, immersing audiences in a journey from the chaos of the Big Bang to ancient stargazing and the breathtaking clarity of deep-space imagery.”

So they explain on their website and, indeed, it is pretty cool, with its swirling shapes and mesmeric music and commentary: “I remember the birth, a singularity flowering into time. Plasma cooling into hydrogen and helium…” goes the spiel.

But no less cool are Studio Vertigo’s Supernova and Nova sculptures, stars grounded on the grass (and how good they look juxtaposed with the stone figures of Norwegian sculptor Nico Widerberg, a permanent fixture here).

The stars of Studio Vertigo light up the campus

Celestial bodies of the imagination rather than reality, they glow and emit steam. They’re incredibly photogenic – but then so is Bethan Maddocks’ collaboration with Jona Aal, Terra Nova.

Bethan, known for her beautiful and delicate work, was doing some fine-tuning to this new piece celebrating navigation by the stars.

Her intricate sphere, with items magnetically attached, throws shadows onto a wall of meteorological balloons behind.

Six of the balloons, she said, had burst during the previous night’s storm but replacements were on the way.

“It’s a work looking at human history and how we’ve navigated by the stars,” she explained.

“There’s a mariner’s compass, a sextant, which is what we once would have used for navigation, but there are also modern satellites.

Artist Bethan Maddocks with Terra Nova

“You’ll see birds that rely on dark skies and starlight to migrate, like the indigo bunting and the bar-tailed godwit that does the longest migration in the world, from the Arctic tundra to New Zealand.

“As we send hundreds of satellites into the sky, we’re actually damaging the darkness. It affects the birds and even astronomers struggle now to see the stars.”

So… yet more emotional baggage to take on board.

I missed A Peace of Space Time by AndNow, visitors from Wales, but even unlit it looked fabulous. You’ll find it behind Ellison Terrace and I reckon it’d be well worth the effort.

Finally I popped into St James’ United Reformed Church on Northumberland Road to marvel at Ascendance by Studio McGuire which gives the impression of an astronaut gently tumbling and turning in space above the altar.

Hear your horoscope at Amy Lord’s Horoscope Hotel

It reminded me of Bill Viola’s piece of 30 years ago which featured a deep diver slowly descending without an aqualung and then ascending in a strangely spiritual video installation at Durham Cathedral.

Like that, this is one to sit and savour. Take a pew. There are plenty.

Many routes can be charted around Enchanted City. Its success, I reckon, will depend heavily on the weather and the mood of those cosmic skies, but on Wednesday, even with a few things still to be ironed out, it made for a rewarding winter experience.

Enchanted City: From City Streets to Cosmic Skies runs from Thursday to Sunday (December 11 to 14). Admission time slots are from 4.30pm and they’re selling out fast. To book, visit the Enchanted City website.