On Monday the Electrolight team had the pleasure of meeting Domenico Bartolo; Designer, Director and Co-founder of 21-19 , a design and communications studio here in Melbourne. Dom presented some of his work including, “The Places in Between”, a visualization of sound through light and colour. This piece was created in association with the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and was designed by Studio 21-19 and composed by Chris Abrahams. The design process commenced in the studio with a computer simulation of colour changing spheres which were painstakingly set to the music. This was then converted into DMX data that then could be transferred to the actual luminaries that made up part of the instillation. The end result is a beautiful piece that we wanted to share with you, so click on the link to be inspired. “The Places in Between”
Archive for May, 2010
21-19 “The Places in Between”
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010The meaning of light
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010At Electrolight we like to get involved in things outside of day-to-day lighting design. We think that it is important to make a contribution to the design community and support community focussed events such as Midsumma festival, the Ringwood Art Project and of course LightCycle – a competition which we run every 2 years where lighting design enthusiasts make their own own wonderful creations from a standard kit of parts.
Next week we have organised an event at Melbourne’s architectural masterpiece Federation Square called The Meaning of Light. The event is on the eve of the launch of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s The Solar Equation. The speakers come from diverse backgrounds but all share one thing in common – light plays a profound role in their lives. For anyone interested in light who would like to gain access to of some of the best thinkers on the subject, this event is a must.
Details: Fed Square, Thursday 3 June, 7pm in the plaza. There will be heaters!
Screw light bulbs
Thursday, May 20th, 2010I have been reading an interesting book on climate change in the Australian context and it has been fascinating. Mind you, I have always been a sucker for a book with a light bulb on the cover!
It is full of fascinating facts including that the estimate of the energy used for lighting in the world is around 20% of all electrical power and hence emissions. As interesting is the quoted fact that the electricity used wastefully by inefficient lighting is the equivalent to the total power output from all 440 of the world’s nuclear power stations. And the culprit – the incandescent bulb? I don’t think so. Anyone who’s had the misfortune to hear me speak on this this issue knows my position – that the incandescent bulb is a cheap and versatile light source that can be used to very effectively illuminate a room with high quality light that can be easily dimmed and disposed of at the end of its life. Instead we have to use these soul-less compact fluoros that contain mercury and other nasties, have poor light quality and can’t be dimmed using standard dimmers. Or halogens – instead of a single 60W incandescent lamp we use 4 x 50W halogens instead. You do the math. Add in some ugly scallops on the walls and dangers of house fires from the intense heat that they generate and you see that this is not a great alternative either. If the government had asked us first we would have told them this and saved countless tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the process. But they didn’t.
If you are keen to learn more about climate change, our carbon future and such issues I highly recommend this book, it’s excellent.
Geelong Performing Arts Centre
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Mark, Amelia, Kate and I went to the opening performace at the newly refurbished Geelong Performing Arts Centre last week.
We saw a performance called The Sapphires, a play directed by renowned indigenous Australian Wesley Enoch – and it was really fabulous.
The theatre is, we believe, the first in Australia to have house lighting that is exclusively LED. The long life of the LED lamps will, we hope, save the theatre a lot of maintenance trouble into the future. It is something of a milestone within our practice to light such a space (the capacity of the theatre is 700) with high ceilings using this technology using locally sourced LED products from Digilin. We are very proudwith the results.
GPAC in all its glory
Photos Trevor Mein, Architect Studio 101
AAMI Park (aka Rectangular Stadium)
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Spectacular lighting? I don't think so
I was invited to the opening of Melbourne’s new football stadium on Friday night. When I left home it was a bit overcast and I thought I’d definitely need a jumper. On the train I saw a few spots of rain on the window. Arrive at Jolimont station and it’s pouring – just a shower I assumed. On the train I get a text message saying that according to the paper there is going to be a lighting spectacular on the roof of the stadium before the game. Now my understanding was that the spectacular lighting system that we designed would not be complete for another month or so; needless to say I was intrigued. When I get to the ground I see one of those really unfortunate laser lighting installations lighting up the shells of the stadium roof.
I get to my seat and wouldn’t ya know it, it was positioned immediately below the drip line of the roof giving me the double problem of driving rain hitting me directly and a steady drip, drip, drip of rain from the roof above. A 12 year old next to me advises that he has taken the last of the ponchos from the vendor in the circulation space. My jumper by now (and jeans and shoes for that matter) is soaking wet. 25 minutes in and it’s 0-0. I still don’t get the rules completely. Then there is grounds for optimism – my companion for the evening Quinny and I discover that despite the sign at the bar, full strength beer is being served, and we find a hot 4 ‘n’ 20. Then we think ‘there is a god’ as we see a couple of ponchos sticking out of the bin. This is not a time to be proud or image conscious so we get them on and endure another quarter of an hour till half time. Then, neither of us had the stamina for another 40 minutes of rugby league initiation in the rain so instead we repaired to the Hilton Hotel bar where it’s warm and dry.
Some time later, a particularly damp looking man tells me Australia won.
Yes, the rain really was that bad