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.