• Beakerhead has its origins in 2011 but began its current festival in 2013.
• It is located all over the downtown, this year’s focus was in Fort Calgary
• Running from Sept 13th – 17th
• Website: https://beakerhead.com/
• Google Pics: Link
• Beakerhead and Beakernight
• Beakerhead returns SEPTEMBER 19-23rd 2018

First of all, I don’t why I haven’t gone to this before.  It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait till our daughter is a little older and she can enjoy more aspects of it.  

First of all my daughter and I did go out on opening night so to speak, Wednesday the 13th.  We took the car down to Eau Claire and parked underground, cheap and lots of spaces available.  CBC was broadcasting the Homestretch from there to promote the first day of Beakerhead.  

At Eau Claire was “The Claw”, a giant version of the “arcade game”.  Like the regular version, you use a controller to pick up objects and drop them in another area.  But that’s where the similarities ended, it was three shipping containers tall and took three players working in unison to control the claw.  One person pushes a giant joystick forward and back to move it side to side.  Another person pushed giant directional buttons side to side to move it forward and back.  The last person had a button to lower the claw, and everyone had a giant button they had to step on all at once to open the claw.

I was surprised that at three and a half my daughter immediately understood what it was, and declared “I wanna do that!”.  We partnered up with another father-daughter team and worked to get only one of the giant bags to the finish area.  I say only one because the group before us had got five in one scoop.  Still, my daughter was no less excited than she had been for the previous people.  Everyone who plays gets a prize, and the other little girl let my daughter claim the prize for us.  My daughter received a fiber optic light up glow wand that changes colors, which she loves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t stay long as it was cold and windy out.  We did a lap of Eau Claire market, but everything was closed so we returned to the car.  I drove us over to the East Village to see what else we could see.  There was a lot of setup work being done at Fort Calgary, but I saw the giant Teeter-Tooters.  I parked the car and said we would check it out.  However, when I opened the door, even more wind hit me that at Eau Claire.  I told my daughter it was super windy and asked if she still wanted to check it out.  Which she did, so off we went in the wind and cold.

They were indeed giant, going about 4ft in the air, made sounds and lit up.  However, because of our significant difference in weight, I only pushed down on one side instead of riding on it.  My daughter wasn’t pleased with my half-hearted “riding”, but she still giggled while going up and down.  We braved the winds a little longer to look around the area and then bumped into some friends also checking things out in the cold.  Then with our little adventure over, we headed back home. 

I hope people were able to get out and enjoy the exhibits of Beakerhead on Thursday and Friday because we just found it too cold out.

However Saturday night we made it out, and it wasn’t as cool in the afternoon/evening.  Not much wind but it did get chilly as the night went on.

I wish we had been able to make it down on Friday or Maybe earlier on Saturday.  We were on Stephen Avenue at 4, and there was nothing going on.  There were more people out than I would expect and we walked around Olympic Plaza before heading to dinner at Milestones.  

I have no photos from Milestones and I’m not going to go into, but it didn’t reach past experiences and expectations for Milestones or this location.

My plan for after dinner was to walk up to the river where we could let our daughter walk around without her needing to be anchored to handholding.  We’d see what was on the way to the East Village and make it to Fort Calgary in time for the Serpent Mother’s eight o’clock show.

On the east side of the center street bridge we found “Bowwave”.  Bowwave was a series of hand sized buttons you could push that would make sounds, and then on the other side of the river, make lights illuminate.  At the time we were there it wasn’t that dark and it was hard to see the lights on the other side.  Only some of the buttons did anything and it wasn’t holding our attention.

With more signage, I would have understood what I was seeing and appreciated it more.  However is/was Bowwave more of an interactive art installation, than a science experiment?  I think so.  In that case, it needs to be taken in, thought about as a piece of expression, without immediate definition.  I saw people reacting like me, they walked along, saw it, stopped for a few seconds, pushed the buttons and kept going.  The format of being on an outside walk leads to this sort of interaction, versus being indoors in a slow paced setting.  There the intention of finding your impression of a work of art is more understood.  Here there is an element of figuring it out, what is it, what does it do, or maybe more important, how do you feel about what you’re seeing, because it is art.

I had this perspective because a guy who was part of the installation came over and spoke to us about it for a few moments.  First, it was rather low tech or done with repurposed tech.  The large stacked blocks with buttons were touch sensitive and left over from the old science center.  They were connected to small modular computers (Raspberry Pi units) which then communicated wirelessly to the lights on the other side of the river.  The shoreline where the lights were set up was “new” having been formed by rocks pushed down during the 2013 flood.  The sounds being played were in fact music, and each button didn’t make sounds, but unmuted an instrument that made up the song.  If enough people pushed and held all the button you would hear the complete song, and see the complete light show.

Perhaps signage asking, “Do you hear it all?  Do you see?”.  Something to drive more experimentation among the people passing by, to lead away from being dismissive.  Then again, you find what you see, you can’t make someone see something in art.  We returned later on the way home, hence the night photos.

We continued our walk to Fort Calgary and came to “Hack the Flyer” going on outside the Simmons building.  This reminded me of high school, teams were riding in a Radio Flyer red wagon through an obstacle course.  The teams had outfitted the wagons whatever way they could to make it through the course.  Was it race against the clock?  Did the teams have a time limit to create their wagons?  I can’t answer these, A) because we arrived late just walking by, B) because the program guide doesn’t have such detail about any exhibits.

We stayed for about ten minutes and saw two of the teams go through the course.  My daughter watched the first race with me, it was fun and funny.  (Don’t judge my camera work.  I was watching the event in person rather than through my screen.)

Next stop was the Fort Calgary grounds.  There were thousands of people everywhere with more coming.  There were stages, dance floors, exhibits, and a dozen food trucks.

There were lots of kids, my daughter wasn’t the youngest we saw, but among the younger side of the kids there.  Most were families with ten to fourteen year olds.  There wasn’t the dominant presence of older teenagers and young twenty somethings  you would see at something like the Stampede.  If my daughter was ten I could see us coming with some other families and letting the kids check things out on their own.

It was a busy environment but not chaotic in the least.  I saw a few police officers around but nothing overwhelming.  There wasn’t the same quantity of garbage and recycling bins we’d been seeing at other events this summer.  I hope the aftermath to Fort Calgary wasn’t too rough.

Visible from far away we made our way to the Serpent Mother.  Serpent Mother is a 168-foot metal sculpture with a moving head and extensive flame effects.  She starts wrapped around her egg and then is sprawled out along the 168-foot distance.  Sadly I did not see the egg open, at which time 40’ plumes of colors flames shoot into the sky.  Created by Flaming Lotus Girls an artist group from San Francisco they specialize in pyrotechnic art installations.  Their exhibits travel around to events like Beakerhead.

Check out their site for more information flaminglotusgirls.com  (Coincidentally their site used the same design platform as Choosing urban)  Also, read their blog for tales of their time in Calgary and all about setting up the Serpent Mother.

My daughter loved the fire show and showed no fear at all.  I thought she would call it a dragon because she presently has a fascination with them, however she understood it was a snake and wanted to see it again!

Walking around there were tents with science presentations going on, games, activities and entertainment everywhere.  We left a little after nine, walking back home, it was a late night for our daughter, but she loved it and talked about it extensively the next day.  We are absolutely coming back next year, with a better plan.  I would recommend anyone with kids to come see it.