My my my. This weekend was so busy and crazy, it feels like a red, white, and blue blur.

The dialog:city event “Veteran Vehicle Project” over on 13th and Grant kicked off the art events this Friday night.

With a large projector and sound system mounted on the back of a humvee, video artist Krzysztof Wodiczko projected text, along with voices, of veterans recounting their war experiences. Moving at times and thought-provoking, each speech finishes out with the sound of rapid gun fire to really blast home the message. Unfortunately short, the video is worth seeing if just for the set-up. It will be running each night until the 26th after dark.

Over on the other side of town, City Park featured the giant Air Forest display is featured, along with a natural health/yoga festival.

On Sunday, folks gathered under the Air Forest to do yoga and relax. Unfortunately, the sculpture sagged a bit (apparently it was planned out in Korea, where the air pressure is quite different than our mile high city air!) But it sounds to be lovely at night. If nothing else, it’s a refreshingly open piece and looks nice in the park.

At Robischon Gallery, the dialog:city artists have smaller works on display that accentuate some of their larger works shown throughout the convention. In the back room, locals get their chance to add to the dialouge, with work from several notable Denver artists.

Featured at Robischon on a small screen is a sample of the work by Paul Millar, AKA DJ Spooky. A trip to Antarctica sparked the imagination of this increasingly recognized musician, writer, and now film-maker, and prompted him to create Terra Nova: The Antarctica Suite, a music/film work that has been seen at places such as the Sundance Film Festival.

Opening at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Sunday night, the piece was beautiful and compelling (I wanted to move to Antarctica) but the music was perhaps the best thing about the piece. It worked well together, and I could have sat in that stylish opera house forever, just listening to the trance-inducing sounds of Spooky.

We had some difficulty with the event, as no one seemed to have a clue how tickets would be distributed, if we could get tickets, or even where it was. No signs, no indications, no staff to direct us. We scrambled around and waited for a long stretch until someone finally popped their heads out of the door and we were allowed in, only to wait even longer until the VIPs had a chance to arrive. It would be nice to see things like this run a little more smoothly, and would surely help out the perception of the arts if the VIPs-first attitude that permeates even public free events like this one were toned down a bit.

Beyond the Performing Arts Center further up the mall, dialog:city hosts a nice display on green development and technology at Parly Sunny, located on the second floor of the Denver Pavilions. Featuring various advancements cities, individuals, and companies are making around the globe, it was encouraging and enlightening to see the many solutions for our environmental problem. If we adopted three or four of the ideas there in Denver, it would be quite an amazing ecological transformation, I imagine. “Partly Sunny” runs throughout the week, and is definitely worth a look.

Tonight, artist Ann Hamilton will be presenting her piece “O” on the steps of the performing arts plaza. A participatory event, the idea is to prevent the ever-present letter, sound, element and idea of “O” in song.

Good god, I’m worn out just thinking about all this.