lighting

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Art

A Scottish Town’s Annual Competition Invites Its Youngest Artists to Design ‘Wonky’ Holiday Lights

For more than 20 years, the town of Newburgh in Fife, Scotland, has marked the holiday season with a wonderfully wonky tradition. Each autumn, young residents are invited to submit original sketches of Christmas decorations to a competition, and once a winning design is selected, Blachere Illumination transforms the work into an LED sculpture that’s then displayed throughout the town. The newest light is a salmon nicknamed “Happy Nemo” that sports a red hat, and the menagerie also features a “reinduck,” a cheerful piece of candy in a green wrapper with arms and legs, and a dinosaur with a star on its head.

 

Design

Conductive Origami by Yael Akirav Unites 3-D Printing and Textiles to Create Foldable Modern Light Fixtures

Israeli industrial designer Yael Akirav 3-D prints conductive material onto textiles to create illuminated works of origami. The lighting fixtures can collapse or expand due to their pliable surfaces, allowing them to be displayed either open and lit or folded into a closed position. This expansive movement stretches the conductive filament and also works almost like a dimmer. A slow pull turns the light on gradually, and then turns it off as it is compressed back into its original position.

Akirav recently graduated from the Industrial Design Department at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem where she was first exposed to 3-D printing technologies. You can see more textile designs created with 3-D printed conductive elements on her website and Instagram.

Design

Fasten Seat Belt Sign Not Included: New Furniture Designed Using Retired Aircraft Parts by Plane Industries

In 2016, Plane Industries (formerly Fallen Furniture) debuted a massive chair made using a reclaimed cowling from a Boeing 737 airplane engine. Over the last three years, the small UK-based company has continued to expand their array of furnishings and home goods that are designed and built with parts from civilian and military aircraft. Using exit doors, wheels, exhaust cones, and leading edge slats, Plane transforms them into functional lamps, tables, clocks, and chairs. Their newest design is the BAe 146 Cowling Chair, a smaller companion to the original 737 design.

Plane Industries was founded in 2012 and is led by two brothers who were inspired by their farmer father’s ethic of saving and repurposing materials. The team works out of a studio in Bath, England. See more from Plane Industries on Instagram and Facebook and shop the collection on their website.

Art

SKALAR: Light Art and Sound Combine to Form an Immersive Concert Experience

Made in collaboration between light artist Christopher Bauder and musician Kangding Ray, SKALAR is an audio/visual art installation that uses a large built structure and beats to create an immersive live concert. First presented in 2014 inside of the Kraftwerk Berlin industrial venue, the performance enthralls audiences with its pulsing, rhythmic soundtrack and entrancing light show.

Based on a psychoevolutionary theory by American psychologist Robert Plutchik, SKALAR is about human perception and emotion. The physical components of the installation are suspended from the ceiling. When moved up and down into different alignments, the kinetic mirrors interact with the beams of colored light and form floating halos that also bounce alternating hues around the dark room. The more ethereal sections of music are matched with slower moving lights, while quicker beats are paired with rapidly flashing patterns. Because the creators manipulate the variables in real time, no two performances of the piece are exactly alike.

Head to Kangding Ray’s Soundcloud to hear more of the musician’s soundscapes, and check out Christopher Bauder’s Instagram to see more designs and light installations.

Craft Design

Geometric Animals Come to Life in DIY Lamp Kits by OWL

OWL, a Lisbon-based lamp brand founded by two architects in 2016, offers a wide range of friendly wild animals that can be turned into volumetric lamps using simple folding techniques. As you might guess, OWL offers a few different owl designs, as well as roaring hippos, curious rabbits, and proud penguins. Hugo Formiga and Teresa Almeida, the designers behind OWL, explain to Colossal that their “most recent designs have focused on large, endangered mammals. The selection tends to raise awareness about wildlife and simultaneously recreates the animals in a playful and abstract manner. The designs seem to trigger stories about themselves and are conceived as fun lighting objects with a hint of personality.”  You can find their range of DIY kits on Etsy. (via Colossal Submissions)

Art

Chandeliers Constructed From Recycled Plastic PET Bottles by Veronika Richterová

Czech artist Veronika Richterová (previously) uses the near indestructible nature of plastic PET bottles to her advantage. By snipping, twisting, and heating the drinking vessels, she forms long-lasting sculptures that visually mirror the qualities of glass. This similarity inspired her series of PET luminaries, a project composed of fully functioning light systems in the form of chandeliers and lamps.

The included works are decorated with tulip-shaped light bulb covers, scalloped edges, and long, twisted segments of recycled bottles that imitate electrical cords. In order to protect these heat-sensitive sculptures, Richterová installs her works with bulbs and cables that produce minimal heat.

A few of Richterová’s plastic chandeliers are currently included in the 50-artist exhibition Eden Unearthed at Sydney’s Eden Gardens through February 2018. You can see more recycled works in the form of cacti, animals, and more on the artist’s website. (via Lustik)