Here’s All The Art, Music, Talks And Robot Fights You Can Catch At Vivid Sydney 2017

Another year, another giant golden vagina to stumble across at Circular Quay! Vivid Sydney just dropped its full program for 2017.

The big news this year in the Lights portion of the program is that the festival is broadening its scope to Barangaroo. The new precinct will feature a whole bunch of light installations including one which provides “a synesthetic experience where you’ll ‘feel’ sounds” (woah) and another which gives the illusion of the ground opening up beneath your feet (nope, nope, nope).

The other main sites of the festival will all be back in action too, and the sails of the Opera House will be lit up by Audio Creatures from Ash Bolland — a work that seeks to “evoke the pulsing sea creatures, eye-searing bird-plumage and iridescent plant life of an organo-mechanistic future”. Bolland, a former director for Nintendo, will be collaborating with electronic composer Amon Tobin so the whole thing should be sufficiently spacey.

This year also brings with it Vivid Music’s biggest program to date. In addition to the already announced Fleet Foxes, the festival will showcase Goldfrapp, Laura Marling, Dappled Cities, Camp Cope, an Avalanches block party (featuring Briggs, DJ Shadow and Sampa The Great), Nick Murphy (FKA Chet Faker), Bill Callahan, Air, The Necks, and heaps more. Check out the full music lineup here.

Last year’s Vivid had an INCREDIBLE lineup in the Ideas category with House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, Orange Is The New Black‘s Jenji Kohan, legendary filmmaker Spike Jonze, and more, so it was always going to be a hard act to follow. Though admittedly smaller, this year’s offerings are still great.

Vivid’s biggest international name this year will be US artist Shepard Fairey. Fairey is most well-known for his iconic HOPE posters during the 2008 presidential campaign. This year, he’s re-entered the political realm with ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ — a series made in opposition to the Trump administration.

In addition to a Game Changer talk about his career and street culture in general, Fairey will also be creating a large public mural live in the CBD. He’s done this in numerous cities all around the world to spectacular results. Considering his activism and interest in both history and the political and cultural zeitgeist, it’ll be interesting to see if he takes the opportunity to use the mural as a political statement.

Elsewhere in the Ideas program, you can hear from the most exciting startups in the country, get a leg up making it big in the music industry, come hear Junkee’s parent company talk about Gen Z, or watch a bunch of robots fight each other. Robowars will feature creations from Australia’s top engineers and robotic nerds battling to the death. Please, and thank you.

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Vivid Sydney is on from May 26- June 17. Check out the full program here.