London 2012 Olympic Park

Over the past month, the whole of the UK, if not the world, seems to have Olympic fever. I was lucky enough to get access to the Olympic Park, which is restricted to event ticket holders only. The park is large in size with many different venues for the various sports, sponsor buildings, pop-up restaurants, souvenir and merchandising shops, and the largest McDonalds. (There's actually two McDonalds restaurants.) In addition to the various buildings, the area was landscaped with a multitude of British wildflowers to make it appear like a country meadow. Various works of art also appeared around the Olympic Art.

Orbit, a massive red roller-coaster-esque sculpture, sticks out of the ground next to the main stadium and nearly towers above it. Visitors can buy a pass to enter this sculpture and to climb it for views over Olympic Park.

RUN is a sculpture of the three letters, spelling "Run", designed by Monica Bonvicini.  The letters are made of glass and stainless steel and act as a mirror in daylight. In night, the letters light up with LED lights. The spacing of the letters changes depending on how close you are standing to the letters.

Steles (Waterworks) are large sculptures that also function as buoys, and these are located in the canals that surround the park area. They are brightly-coloured, and they remind me of giant crayons.

bit.fall is a work of art using water and light to spell out words as it drops from a bridge above. This artwork was created by Julius Popp. The words are chosen at random from live news feeds, and this artwork uses technology.

One of the sponsor's exhibits, Coca Cola, functioned as a large 'beat box'. The building resembled pieces of lit red and white shards placed together. Visitors could interact with the building by touching various panels inside it to play different notes. The notes were based on the official Coca Cola song by Mark Ronson and Katy B, and the song was created by recording various sports sounds and vocals. When touching a panel, visitors to the building could hear one of the sounds (sports, vocals, or a musical instrument) used in the song. The exhibit continued to the top of the building where visitors could get a photograph with the torch and inside the building where they received free bottles of the drink and watched performances by some of the young entertainers with dance/music/performance talents.

There are many more works of art to be found in the Olympic Park. In addition, the main arena lights up at night, rotating between several colours - green, blue, pink, orange, yellow. 

Were you lucky enough to visit the Olympic Park or see a game in the Olympics? Let me know what you thought of the Olympic Park.