Selux

VIVID LIGHT – Young and upcoming designers present a light installation made from airbags

The young lighting desi­gners were sup­por­ted in imple­men­ting their art pro­ject by the glo­bal­lighting manu­fac­tu­rer Selux. VIVID LIGHT was ini­tially pre­sen­ted before an inter­na­tio­nal public in New Yorkat the jubi­lee cele­bra­tion of US maga­zine “AL – Archi­tec­tu­ral Lighting” in Decem­ber 2011. Now, from 15^th-20^th April 2012, visi­tors to the trade fair in Frank­furt am Main will also get a chance to enlighten them­sel­ves about this inte­rac­tive cloud made of auto­mo­tive air­bags.

Who better to muse about the chal­len­ges of the ​“Future of Lighting” and to for­mu­late ideas on this than the next gene­ra­tio­ni­tself? Hansi Müller, Mar­ke­ting Mana­ger at Selux Corp. and Eli­za­beth Donoff, Editor-in-Chief of “AL – Archi­tec­tu­ral Lighting” maga­zine were the ini­tia­tors of this business/​student col­la­bo­ra­tion and are united on this issue. The Lighting Design stu­dents were enli­sted for the pro­ject in coo­pe­ra­tion with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Paul W. Sch­mits from the Uni­ver­sity of Applied Scien­ces and Arts in Hil­de­sheim and the Berlin head office of Selux.

For the 25^th anni­ver­sary of the US spe­cia­list maga­zine “AL – Archi­tec­tu­ral Lighting, a trio of young desi­gners were given the task of desi­gning a instal­la­tion on the theme of ​“The Future of Lighting”. VIVID LIGHT was the result, crea­ted by Julia Berner, Ale­xan­der Dronka and Johan­nes Roloff in the space of three months, during which time they desi­gned, plan­ned and rea­li­sed an inte­rac­tive cloud of white nylon air­bags, which hovers in the air over onloo­kers. Equip­ped with fans and lamps as well as inter­con­nec­ted sen­sors, the cloud forms the heart­piece of their instal­la­tion. To start with, all the air­bags are iden­ti­cal but if a visi­tor tou­ches an airbag, it will inflate itself and begin to glow. From­this point onwards, the cloud responds to the onloo­kers and to itself. VIVID LIGHT ren­ders visi­tors part of the instal­la­tion, invi­ting them to test it out and play with it. The con­stant chan­ges demon­strate the dif­fe­rent qua­li­ties of the lamp­ty­pes used, for the pur­po­ses of direct com­pa­ri­son and as a com­po­si­tio­nal inte­rac­tion. When visi­tors stop tou­ching VIVID LIGHT, it returns to its ini­tial state again. Only non-digi­tal tech­ni­ques and indu­strial semi-fini­shed pro­ducts wereu­sed for the instal­la­tion in order to empha­sise how VIVID LIGHT only func­tions as a result of human inter­ven­tion yet at the same time never remains con­stant because of this too. VIVID LIGHT and its users have a mutual need for andin­fluence on one ano­ther.

“In our view, the ​“Future of Lighting” will be domi­na­ted less and less by tech­ni­cal aspects of lamps and lumi­nai­res. Effect and design vision will increa­sin­gly become the fac­tors accor­ding to which lighting tools are selec­ted and deve­lo­ped, with new tech­no­lo­gies acting as the dri­ving force behind this deve­lo­p­ment. We believe that kno­w­ledge gained in this area will also be used with esta­bli­shed tech­no­lo­gies. Appli­ca­tion, deve­lo­p­ment and usa­bi­lity will find an equi­li­brium and the qua­lity of light and its effect will gain grea­ter atten­tion and signi­fi­cance,” the young and upco­ming desi­gners explai­ned, the­reby justi­fy­ing their con­cep­tual work.

Mate­rials: 45 air­bags, 45 fans, 15 sen­sors, 15 boards, 5 incan­de­scent lamps, 15 halo­gen lamps, 19 com­pact fluo­re­scen­tlamps, 10 LED retro­fits

Team: Julia Berner, Johan­nes Roloff, Ale­xan­der Dronka
Super­vi­sion: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Paul W. Sch­mits, HAWK Hil­de­sheim, Faculty of Design/​Lighting Design, Hansi Müller,Marketing, Selux Corp. USA, Hédi Kör­mendi, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Selux AG, Berlin

The VIVID LIGHT light instal­la­tion will be on show from 15^th to 20^th April 2012 at Light + Buil­ding in Frank­furt am Main. The Higher Edu­ca­tion Area for Archi­tec­ture + Lighting Tech­no­logy is situa­ted in Buil­ding 5.1 –Deko­ra­tive Wohnraumleuchten/​Decorative Lumi­nai­res for Living Spaces, Stand D91.