London 2012 Festival

27 Dec 2011
For the first countdown event of the London 2012 Festival partygoers at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will receive a special digital extra to add to their celebrations.
 
Edinburgh’s Hogmanay is using @thistimeofyear to bring a piece of London 2012 Festival art to Scotland’s capital to mark the moment that the Olympic and Paralympic year begins.

Partygoers at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, Edinburgh residents and visitors to the City will be able to download a specially created App from the Hogmanay website:  www.edinburghshogmanay.com/london2012. The app uses augmented reality technology, to deliver a virtual surprise created by Michael Craig-Martin, one of the official London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic poster artists.  

The app will be available to download from 28 December. From 30th December revellers will be able to open the app and point their phone at Edinburgh Castle and a Michael Craig-Martin image, developed using augmented reality, will appear. At midnight on 31 December partygoers can point their phone at Edinburgh Castle and a special augmented reality e-card will pop up on the phone that can be included as the backdrop in photos taken in Edinburgh giving a 2012 greeting to send to friends and family and  share through social media.  

@thistimeofyear is a London 2012 Festival commission from Magic Lantern, produced in association with Unique Events and the City of Edinburgh Council for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.

Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad & London 2012 Festival, said: ‘We’re excited to be working with Edinburgh’s Hogmanay for our first countdown event which, in this digital age, brings together new technologies and art for the New Year celebrations in Edinburgh. We hope @thistimeofyear will bring a fun dimension to the celebrations as we see in the Olympic and Paralympic year.’

Michael Craig-Martin said: ‘I am delighted to contribute through new technological media to this exciting celebration which is one of the countdown events for the London 2012 Festival. Next year should prove an important time for art and culture as well outstanding sporting events.’

Pete Irvine, Creative Director of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, said ‘We are delighted that part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay is the first countdown event of the London 2012 Festival.    The eyes of the world will be on the UK this year, and where better to welcome 2012, the Year of Creative Scotland, than Edinburgh –  where 80,000 revellers will enjoy the UK’s largest New Year’s Party, and the spectacular Midnight fireworks.’

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive, Creative Scotland said: ‘Scotland is a festival nation and Hogmanay is one of the biggest and best. This Hogmanay will kick off an extraordinary, year-long celebration of Scottish creativity for the Year of Creative Scotland 2012 and the London 2012 Festival– and @thistimeofyear is the perfect start!’

The London 2012 Festival will be a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration from 21 June and running until 9 September 2012 bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK.

On Midsummer Night, the first day of the London 2012 Festival, Gustavo Dudamel and The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela will perform a spectacular outdoor concert in the heart of a Scottish community where their “El Sistema” philosophy has taken root. Playing ‘The Big Concert’ - the opening Concert of the London 2012 Festival in Scotland - Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela will perform this open air concert in the shadow of Stirling Castle.  Maestro Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the orchestra will be ‘artists-in-residence’ with the children from the Big Noise orchestra in the days before the family concert and the children will perform with their Venezuelan mentors.

Other highlights of the London 2012 Festival programme in Scotland include the Kronos Quartet performing Terry Riley’s Sun Rings at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, a new digital artwork for an iconic site in Dundee, two new productions for children and young people for the Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival, a relay of film screenings starting in Shetland, a new film by director Lynn Ramsay and a story relay by pioneering climate and culture organisation Cape Farewell.

Edinburgh’s Festivals will play a major role in celebrating London 2012, with the world’s elite and emerging cultural talent gathering in Edinburgh while their sporting equivalents are in London. Creative Scotland and Edinburgh’s Festivals are a major partner of the London 2012 Festival.

For more details visit www.london2012.com/festival.