White Night 2017 Gets Fired Up Mad Max Style With Flame Throwing Organ

Love it or hate it – and there are plenty in both camps – White Night is on the horizon, and in 2017, things are getting  fired-up thanks to a giant, flame-belching organ that Mad Max would be proud of.

Yes folks, flame throwers and organ pipes, together at last, thanks to Hubbub Music’s descriptively named Pyrophone Juggernaut. Built from repurposed industrial scrap metal, the hand-cranked instrument will be brought to life by 20 (hopefully flame retardant) musicians and performance artists.

The one-night city-wide spectacle will be lighting up Melbourne from dusk til dawn on Saturday 18 Feb, and will feature a weird and wonderful array of installations, performances, projections and all manner of other creative expressions that defy categorisation. Amongst the most imposing works on display will be Alex Sanson’s Spherophyte, a fantastical mechanical flower that will bloom in a dynamic ballet of kinetic sculpture and dazzling lights.

The Medusa

The Medusa is an ethereal jellyfish (created, aptly, by John Fish) that will stalk the skies above Hosier Lane. Described as “elusive, beautiful and mysteriously alien,” the sculpture will pulsate with coloured light, bringing the mighty sky bound sea creature to life.

For the first time in 2017, a second White Night will take place in Ballarat, offering audiences in regional Victoria a flavour of the metropolitan iteration. The centrepieces of White Night Ballarat, which takes place on March 4, are inspired by the area's Indigenous history. Wadawurrung Walking with Waa will see artworks by Aunty Marlene and her daughter Deanne Gilson projected on the walls of local buildings. Crate Expectations is a playful robotic sculpture made from vintage packing crates and old furniture. This junkyard automaton will light up the streets of Ballarat, “seeking out and responding to audiences throughout the night.”