Expect illuminating, arty encounters at Flux Night

At first glance, David Yu’s “Small Meteorites,” one of of 14 temporary public artworks that will be presented Saturday night as part of Flux Night in the Castleberry Hill neighborhood, appears as benign as any Atlanta traffic encounter.

Five vehicles will be parked on Centennial Olympic Park Drive just south of Chapel Street near the Castleberry Point lofts. While none of the cars will be moving, drama will be rolling (and perhaps roiling) inside them via video projections on the cars’ inside windows.

Viewers are encouraged to walk around them to absorb the disconnected narratives. Canadian artist Yu said he’s interested in the “insular outlook of contemporary life that suddenly becomes significant” through the random collisions we have with one another.

Yes, you can expect a virtual car crash.

“I want to take the viewer for a ride,” Yu says on his website, “ruffle his/her feathers.”

Audience-provoking interactions are part and parcel of what Flux Night attempts to deliver in this third annual free public art event comprised of sound and light installations, projections, dance, performance art, music and more. It’s modeled on international celebrations such as Toronto’s Nuit Blanche that specialize in sidewalk and street encounters.

The 14 presentations include an opening Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons lantern parade; “Sound Cloud Forest,” an installation by the Los Angeles collective Aphidoidea that will produce sounds and colors when touched by the audience; former Atlantan Amber Boardman’s “Prelude Two,” a video installation that takes viewers through a small apartment to watch an incoming tsunami, set to Wagner’s “Die Walküre Prelude”; and choreographer Nicole Livieratos’ “Turn the Page,” six performance works commenting on American energy consumption.

Flux Night is concentrating on fewer and larger projects and enhanced audience amenities this year — from more food trucks and beer carts to expanded street closings and free shuttles (from the Georgia World Congress Center’s Brown Lot; and Centennial Olympic Park, Centennial Olympic Park Drive at Marietta Street).

It’s a major annual undertaking of Flux Projects, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that presents public art encounters year-round with the mission to “galvanize Atlanta’s cultural curiosity.”