At the weekend, Wendy and I went to see the son-et-lumiere installation Space, by the Luxmuralis collaboration, at Durham Cathedral.

It was visually impressive, lending the Cathedral an unusual ethereal quality, and changing the feeling of a building we know reasonably well. The sound was also effective, and at moments, the combination was genuinely breathtaking.

But we were slightly left wondering: what’s the point? What is the artwork trying to say? In one installation, there was audio of Richard Nixon speaking to the Apollo 11 astronauts, saying

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this earth are truly one.

One wondered if this was a bit of a dig at the divisiveness of religion, exhibited in a Cathedral—but the whole thing left me with the impression that it wasn’t intended to be that deep (especially after I was handed a prayer card on my way out).

I think it may just have been spectacle for spectacle’s sake, and perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that.