Brewed Fresh Daily

A full house was at the much-anticipated Luminocity event where Cleveland Public Art successfully visually captured the transformation of Cleveland. Huge images of faces from pieces out of the Cleveland Museum of Art were projected so that they looked to peer out from the historical Cleveland Trust Building. Another projection called "Circuits" seems to meld together the high tech future with the solid assurance that the Trust building represents with its roots in the Cleveland's heyday past. The event also kicked off the first resounding leap of OneCleveland in offering free WiFi from Playhouse Square to Public Square with Lev Gonick happily calling Australia with Voice over IP (VoIP) and sending pictures of the event from his Treo. He even offered use of his laptop for me to send in this review via the "no-strings-attached" connection. This event earmarks Cleveland as the largest free wifi city. Seen in the crowd was an eclectic artist and techie group that usual are only together at an Art/Tech dance. Enjoying food from as diverse places as Tremont's Take-a-Bite and SanSouci was Len Steinbach, CIO of CMA, Joan Perch of ArtMetro, Suzie Mueller and hubby Tim, Del Klingensmith of OneCleveland, Steve Lorenz of Kamm's Corners EDC, "Lil John" Rinaldi from across the street, Hunter Peckham of Case's FES lab, and as well as many other supporters of the arts. Former first lady of Ohio, Dagmar Celeste, remarked about how wonderful that there was such a young crowd among the usual patrons of traditional art. The mature guests were telling stories about their experiences back when The Trust Building housed an active bank while the younger folks just wanted to see the unique and grand architecture along with the famous Tiffany dome (which is magnificent!). The energy and excitement was only interrupted by the awkward running out to the cold to see the projections while too many politicians droned too long before the pulling of the virtual switch. But who can blame them for wanting to express their excitement on such a unique demonstration of Cleveland technology and creativity. I only wished they said it all INSIDE, where it was warm. CPA deserves a lot of credit for the job in pulling together the many different partners to make the reopening of this Cleveland treasure, not only as a memorable event, but as a showcase that differentiates our city as one that has all the goods to create success. Filed live via wireless from the Cleveland Trust Building by Cool Cleveland contributor Steve Goldberg steveg@ieee.org