It is no small feat to drag tens of thousands of people out of their homes and pubs on the coldest weekend of the last few months just to stare at illuminated walls. I鈥檝e never been to a football match, but clambering out of聽London鈥檚 Oxford Street underground station last Friday night into a bitter chill, I did feel eerily connected to the crowds around me.

We had come to see Lumiere London, the mid-January festival of light that brought the capital to a standstill. The scrum to get into the Circus of Light聽鈥� a giant big top promising 鈥渁 magical animated world of music and mayhem鈥澛犫�� was a precursor to the chaos that followed 24 hours later when the police issued warnings and Kings Cross station was evacuated due to overcrowding.

If you were one of the dozen people lucky enough to get anywhere near the Lumiere bar at Central Saint Martins college, then you may have seen Mick Stephenson鈥檚 Litre of Light. Perhaps the only 鈥渄esign鈥� project in Lumiere London, it plays upon a simple optical effect聽鈥� the way a plastic bottle filled with water and bleach will diffuse and amplify the light passing through it. Whether the source is daylight or artificial light, this provides a cheap way to improve the illumination in a space.

鈥淣othing could outcompete the lights that already fill the city鈥�

Although simple, the piece and the way it was installed were quite beautiful, and I鈥檇 be keen to see its practical applications beyond providing lighting for a bar in an art school.

Nearby, the way the crowd gathered round Spectra-3 by Field.io turned it into an alien street performer: a mirrored radar dish swung about by unseen forces. It felt oddly confined in the space, between two fully lit buildings. The piece had to contend with so many other background noises and lights, it felt out of place. It should have been on a quiet hilltop in the mist, throwing light at the sky.

It would be easy to criticise on artistic grounds. Some of the work was hard to see, not just because of the crowds but because London is itself, literally, brilliant. Nothing could outcompete the lights that already fill the city, and no single piece helped me to 鈥渟ee London in a new light鈥�.

Only a handful of works dealt with exciting conceptual ideas, and the word 鈥渟pectacle鈥� 鈥� which can only rarely be applied to good art 鈥� did repeat itself an awful lot. Some pieces, accompanied by the kind of blurbs that you have to read eight times, did no more than awe people with powerful projectors. Still, the sheer number of harried Londoners who turned out, night after night, looking for a free thrill, is testament to the scale and promise of Lumiere London.

At one point I found myself in Regent Street, milling around with families and young couples beneath Port茅 par le vent鈥檚 Lumin茅oles 鈥� two gigantic tropical fish dirigibles. It鈥檚 rare that anything this spectacular happens for free. (In London, they鈥檝e even started ticketing the fireworks on New Year鈥檚 Eve.) These creatures from beyond, with their impressive bodies and elegant choreography, were for a while a part of London, not just laid on top of it, sequestered on a rooftop bar somewhere behind a velvet rope. And they were a joy to see.

Lumiere London was held at venues across central London, 14 to 17 January

Such is the bold invitation issued by , a one-weekend festival of lights with a version that premiered in Durham, UK, last November to great acclaim.

We鈥檙e used to lights in London, of course. There鈥檚 the refracted glare of early-morning smog; the double-flash of speed cameras; those ubiquitous LED 鈥淥pen鈥� signs that must be making someone, somewhere, a small fortune.

Lumiere London promises us something different. About 30 artistic installations will spring up around the city, only to disappear by the end of the weekend: a fleeting visitation of secret waves from the beyond.

Never mind last year鈥檚 underwhelming International Year of Light, for there鈥檚 a renewed and genuine interest in light as a medium in the art world. The at London鈥檚 Hayward Gallery in 2013 was almost constantly sold out. In 2015, companies and university departments tripped over themselves to exploit the aesthetic and dramatic potential of virtual light, ahead of the UK commercial release of the Oculus Rift headset . Laser-scanned 3D point clouds have been gathering in galleries and festivals all over Europe. And a by ScanLab Projects at The Photographers鈥� Gallery in London, showing cybernetically glimpsed animal decomposition, tipped past the usual digital uncanny into a gothic-horror space all its own.

A different sort of horror held sway in Paris, where big public visualisations of the desperate state of the world鈥檚 climate occupied the streets during the UN鈥檚 COP21 conference on climate change. The large public gatherings that ought to have been watching and wailing were, however, banned by the city鈥檚 beleaguered police following terror attacks just days before.

Light spectacular

Some of the works at Lumiere London promise to be great spectacles. Ocubo鈥檚 , in front of the new Central Saint Martins art school at King鈥檚 Cross, promises a 鈥渕agical animated world of music and mayhem鈥�, combining 3D projection mapping with live performances.

Other works promise more considered insight into the use of light as a medium. Drag yourself away from Circus of Light, look over the canal, and you will be able to see by Belgian group Lab[au] 鈥� an attempt to visualise the 鈥渋nvisible layer within a city of the electromagnetic field鈥�. The artists are keen to point out that this work is more than just another data visualisation: posed at the edge of the water, their lights will respond in real time to invisible flows of information that surround them from mobile phones, radios and cars. Artists often query or express concern over these invisible structures in our urban environment: Lab[au] wants to welcome them into the visible architecture of the city.

Around the side of the Central Saint Martins building, you will find , the latest in a series of 鈥減hysical-digital鈥� sculptures by London-based artists Field.io. At first glance, their sculpture resembles a radio telescope. Field.io co-founder Vera-Maria Glahn told me this is intentional: Spectra-3 is 鈥渁 communication device that communicates with something out there that we don鈥檛 really have a symbol for鈥�, she says. Glahn talks of the sculpture conducting a 鈥渃horeography of matter鈥�. The impression is of some benign alien technology that wrestles for control of light for an obscure but clearly playful purpose.

Spectacles and interesting conceptual turns will dominate, but politics is not neglected. Access to light is, after all, one of the most pressing issues in large parts of the developing world. And, being tied to the energy grid and the manufacturing supply chain, electrical light has its environmental costs.

In Trafalgar Square, anonymous artistic group Luzinterruptus will install , a model that alludes to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch 鈥� an enormous, diffuse 鈥渋sland鈥� of refuse in the middle of the ocean, drawn together by global tides. Here we see the material cost of a culture in which constant electric lighting is the norm.

Perhaps as a counterpoint, and using the plastic bottles 鈥� as in the Luzinterruptus work 鈥� for a practical purpose, Mick Stephenson鈥檚 project at Central Saint Martins is a simple proposal for recycling plastic bottles as light bulbs.

These last two works strike a mordant note, pointing to a future in which such large-scale weekend light extravaganzas may not be so easy to stage or cheap to maintain. Nor may we be able to take such innocent delight in our more-than-visible world.

Lumiere London takes place in several locations across London from 14 to 17 January.

Image information (top to bottom): Circus of Light in Portugal 2013 (credit: Ocubo.com); binaryWaves (credit: Lab(au)); Spectra-3 (credit: Field.io); Litre of Light in Durham 2013 (credit: MyShelter Foundation and Mick Stephenson)