Edinburgh’s Hogmanay: the streets light up for Val McDermid…
Message from the Skies will be projected from 5pm-10pm daily from 1-25 January, and admission is free. For more information on the project and the app see www.edinburghshogmanay.com
Winning poems and stories from a writing competition for young people will be projected on to three of the same buildings from 4-5pm daily from 2-25 January. Developed with the help of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Message from the Skies turns the buildings of Edinburgh into the pages of a new short story by Val McDermid, written specifically for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. Projected on to 12 buildings and landmarks in the Old and New Towns, it forms a route which audiences can follow between 5pm-10pm daily from 1 January until Burns Night. The project is one of the major arts components of this year’s Hogmanay Festival, and is co-ordinated by director and dramaturg Philip Howard, with projection and animation by young Edinburgh company DoubleTake Projections. While projecting words and images onto buildings now feels like a commonplace part of major festivals and events, projecting a complete story on to a series of buildings around a city is believed to be completely new. “It is a storytelling event with sound and animation and a few other things, but it’s still a short story by a very well known writer which works on the page,” says Howard, former artistic director at the Traverse Theatre who now runs emergent theatre company Pearlfisher. “It’s celebrating Edinburgh’s built environment and its status as Unesco World City of Literature, and it’s also a quasi-theatrical experience. We have quite a few tricks up our sleeve, but I think I’d have to be killed if I told you what they are.”
