Amsterdam Underground Festival

This week's festival was the Amsterdam Underground festival. Not, as you might think, a collection of art from the metaphorical underground, but rather an art festival that actually takes place under the ground. We went to two venues today, and it was nice that they were underground because it allowed us to (mostly) escape the rainy weather.

First was a tour of the tunnel that goes under the IJ (pronounced "eye"). The "tour" actually consisted of an audio guide on an MP3 player, and you walked the entire length of the tunnel alone. Apparently, if I spoke enough Dutch to understand more of what the tour said, it would have provided me with a mixture of information about the tunnel and the fictional story of someone trapped in the tunnel looking for help. As it was, it was just cool to see a place that is not normally open to the public... the dingy maintenance tunnel that goes under the automobile tunnel that connects North Amsterdam to the city center.

Next, we went to the "sunken cathedral." It is a huge cement space... this is what the Amsterdam Underground website says:

Caisson 1 is the shaft from which the drills for the new North/South subway line will depart. The caisson was built above ground, and then literally sunk into the earth. It lies at a depth of 24 meters. In 2008, both tunnel drills will be constructed at this location and drill their way to the Rokin, Vijzelgracht and Ceintuurbaan stations. During the Amsterdam Underground Festival, this enormous new space will be exclusively opened for figurative art, lectures and a theatrical performance. It’s now or never for visitors: this is a one time only chance to descend into this enormous concrete space with its cathedral-like acoustics. Soon there will be subways raging through it.

Pretty cool, huh? Well, it's even more cool considering they were playing video art on the HUGE walls. See pix:

This was another installation... because it is an active construction site (they're just taking a break for this weekend) it's open to the sky above... and thus was rather soaked in water. It was certainly intentional, though, since they gave us all very attractive rubber boots and hard hats at the entrance.

Here you can see some well-outfitted folk viewing the video art.

The other half of the space was flooded, with lights and lots of electrical cables still running through it (this would never have worked in the US), and it was VERY fun to splash around in the water.
The view from the very back of the room, looking over the flooded area towards the video art. On the right you can see a very industrial swing... but it has a blanket on it, to add that touch of home.

In between video pieces, they played music with the lights. It was pretty cool... although it did sort of make you wonder if there was some major hazard of mixing electricity and water so completely. But, we all came out in one piece (or, rather, each of us came out in one piece), so all is well.