Light bulb moments

The end of May marks the start of the Vivid festival in Sydney, creating light bulb moments of bright lights and bright ideas in Sydney.

For Augmented Reality (AR) enthusiasts, Vivid's app this year allows you to use AR to explore the illuminated artworks via your phone. A step up from Pokemon Go!

AR in the Vivid app allows you to find out more about the artworks

And at this year's Vivid Ideas Exchange, kids 9-12 years old can enjoy a design thinking workshop. The event will be run by digital agency Syfte at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). Over 2 hours, kids will be given a problem, then guided to find a creative solution. They'll learn skills such as interviewing, observing, reflecting on feedback and sketching as well as prototyping - all skills familiar to User Experience Designers.

While not strictly AR or Vivid-related, recently at the Powerhouse Museum, the Future Park exhibition from Japan's TeamLab allowed kids to colour and scan pictures of trucks and spaceships and incorporate them into a moving illuminated city scene. This co-created digital artwork was also interactive, with kids making cars and trucks jump by touching them on the screen as they zoomed along.

Kid or adult, there are plenty of reasons to get out and enjoy some brightness, in all its forms, at Vivid.