There is a great tradition that sometime around my birthday Heather and I find ourselves in Canary Wharf for their annual Winter Lights event. So it was we once again found ourselves there back in January.

We started our tour down by the river, where Out of Body Experience saw some stick figures greeting us. We were quickly on from those, and the disappointing Lacto-Reacto-Light to the circle of Westferry Circus. There we stood in wonder for some time at the first highlight of the night, the spinning, sound accompanied Flower Power, whose swirling colours almost hypnotised us.

The next big circle of the large water feature at Cabot Square held less excitement than it had in previous years, Reelize.Studio’s Trispheric Garden sitting glowing balls in glowing cubes but not doing much else, and certainly not playing with the reflections in the water like other works have.

Nearby were more glowing balls, this time solid, in the form of a In Bloom by Kumquat Lab. The balls changed colour upon touching, but would have been more fun had they changed to different colours each time.

Deep in one of the maze of shopping malls buried beneath the surface of Canary Wharf we found For Ever and Ever and Ever by Anna Lomax, a work actually split across three locations in the malls. To be honest though, once you’d seen one example of the fairly unimaginative infinite mirror type trick, you’d seen it all. Much more interesting were the suite of planets hovering over the paths and flower beds of the roof garden at Crossrail Place. Sol by Artistic Latvia/Janis Petersons brought our fellow Sun travellers down close to eerily hang above our heads, within touching distance. Reminiscent of the individual Sun, or Moon we’ve seen, or the Earth floating around the Wharf a few years ago, but on a smaller, more personal scale, and a sense of wonder wandering around them.

Back down from there and over to near the tube station we found Aether (I swear there’s always one called Aether). This was a grid of dancing, changing lights suspended above us with ambient sound track. It was compelling enough, but, like the name, there always seems to be one of these types of things and there is little to distinguish them. There also always tends to be a wavy thing, though Sudio Vertigo’s Blueprint was one of the more interesting ones, a colourful swirl of tubes in a helix pattern (apparently involving real DNA data, which I suppose is something).

Another swirly thing, of a sort, was Scale’s Hulahoop which consisted of two interwoven strings of what looked like illuminated hulahoops. Set to background music, the changing patterns and colours of illumination achieved a mesmerising complexity little promised at first sight, making it another highlight of the selection.

Ithaca Studio’s Sanctuary was of a larger scale, big enough to contain a few dozen people within it’s changing lights and mirrors. At times quite dull, and at times interesting, it was about average on the impressive scale. Less than average was Un-Reel Access by Kappa, which was a door, with an upturned corner (seemed weirdly popular with a certain type though, judging by the number of photos being taken in front of it).

To be honest the best parts seemed to have past, barring maybe the last thing we saw. Colour Rush was, erm, a bunch of colours in a column (and felt a bit like Captivated By Colour turned on its side somehow). Manifestation (Marcus Lyall) was long, but ultimately not interesting. At The Hand is another “show your motion” interactive thing that is, when all is said and done, one of those pin toys writ large with fancy lights. We weren’t about to queue for a go.

The last thing we encountered was Amplitudes, a water screen projection (always quite enjoy those) of shifting, changing vibrant colours. It was a nice way to see off the evening, with one of the better installations filling Eden Dock; at times abstract nothing, at times peacock, at times something between.