Imagine that pixels could fly out of your computer screen and create an immersive, luminous cloud capable of displaying digital information in three-dimensional space. This is the vision beyond Flyfire, a new project put together by researchers at MIT's SENSEable City Lab and Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems Laboratory (ARES Lab).
Flyfire uses a large number of remotely controlled, self-organizing "micro helicopters". Each helicopter contains small LEDs and acts as a smart pixel. Through digitally controlled movements, the helicopters perform elaborate and synchronized choreographies, generating a unique free-form display in three-dimensional space.
Flyfire is conceived as a public space installation, in which the pixels recharge every few minutes and then perform in space.
The Flyfire project was developed by E Roon Kang, Carnaven Chiu, Caitlin Zacharias, Shaocong Zhou, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti of SENSEable City Lab in collaboration with Erich Mueller and Emilio Frazzoli of ARES Lab.
Dwell magazine series on lighting design profiles "lighting urbanist" Leni Schwendinger.
The video takes the viewer on a journey starting in Schwendinger's Light Projects LTD studio and on to the far west side of Manhattan, Triple Bridge Gateway at the bus terminal, Times Square, and Bryant Park.
2010 IES Illumination Awards The Energy and Environmental Award - Special Citation
In June, The Illumination Engineering Society announced their awards recognizing professionalism, ingenuity, and originality in lighting
design. Earning a "Special Citation" in the Energy and Environmental Award category (sponsored by Osram Sylvania) was the 5-meter custom-made chandelier in the shape of a guitar, located in the Hard Rock Cafe in Prague.
Designer Terry Bell, principal of CD+M Lighting Design Group (Orlando section of IES) earned the award for "the creative application of LED's utilized close to the crystals which resulted in an energy efficient artistic use of light." [Quote from IES 2010 Illumination Awards brochure]
Hard Rock Cafe Prague, the largest in Europe, covers three floors. The giant guitar chandelier is suspended above the ground-floor bar from the ceiling window high above. giving the whole area an incredible sense of light. The chandelier has 9,444 small crystals hanging from 1,500 strings.
For more details on the IES Illumination Awards, visit the IES website. Congratulations to all the winners!
Guitar Chandelier, Hard Rock Cafe, Prague (photo from IES)
Guitar Chandelier, Hard Rock Cafe, Prague. Photo by Karel Kulhavy, 12-23-09 (from Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License)
"Stellar" by Tokujin Yoshioka
Swarovski Crystal Chandelier exhibited at Swarovski Crystal Palace, Salone del Mobile 2010 / Milan Design Week 2010
"I am drawn to the beauty, transparency and poetry of crystals. Crystal is transparent, but it catches light and brilliance. What is important for me is not just designing another new chandelier with crystal, but to create a star which shines into the viewer's heart."
"This year, I intend to create a star, descended from the sky emitting many rays of light in the space; thus I would like to name this work 'Stellar'." -- Tokujin Yoshioka
Descending from the sky, this artificial star casts rays of light on the exhibition space at Milan Week 2010.
"Stellar" is a "living crystal" chandelier grown in a tank filled with a mineral solution. "A half of the production of the work is guided by myself, and the other half is made by Mother Nature," says Yoshioka. "We put a block of soft polyester fiber in a huge aquarium with a solution, where special mineral is melted in. On the polyester fiber, natural crystal begins to form its structure and continues a gradual grow until it is completed. . . . It takes approximately 1 month to complete the work."
While his pieces are being created, Yoshioka plays music to help guide them around a desired mold.
"Stellar" can be considered a follow-up piece to Yoshioka's "VENUS" crystal chairs of 2008, also based on the formation process of natural crystal.
"SpectraScape" by light sculpture artist Leni Schwendinger
An interactive, illuminated public artwork in Dallas Main Street Garden Park
The SpectraScape installation consists of five illuminated Garden Shelters designed by Leni Schwendinger and her studio, Light Projects LTD. Customized bands of light scroll across the top of each shelter, using colors inspired by the seasonal landscape of the city. In addition, when park visitors enter the green glass shelters, the scrolls of color freeze as interior lights illuminate the inside of the shelter space.
On March 20, 2010, for example (when the Vernal Equinox occurred in the northern hemisphere), the SpectraScape colors shifted from winter's green and white to the pink tones of spring.
This work is located within central Dallas's first urban park
landscape, at the heart of the city's downtown revitalization. Light
Projects also collaborated on the park design.
"I wanted to bring light and narrative out into the street where people already were," says Schwendinger.
About Leni Schwendinger Light Projects LTD
Leni Schwendinger Light Projects LTD (LSLP) fuses art and design with light. The studio creates lighting environments for architectural and public spaces all over the world, with the ultimate objective of connecting people to each other and to their surroundings.
Leni Schwendinger is an internationally renowned lighting designer, artist, speaker and teacher, and the recipient of numerous professional awards. She is
considered an innovator and authority on urban lighting and infrastructure.
Main Street Garden Park, Dallas, TX Photo by Dfwcre8tive 2009-12-15
(Wikipedia)
The green structures in right foreground comprise the
SpectraScape installation
Winners of 2010 NYC Student Lighting
Competition: IES NYC
The New York City section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNYC) announced the winners of the 2010 NYC Student Lighting Competition during its 10th annual awards reception held at The Helen Mills Theater, New York City.
(From the IESNYC website:)
Asked to develop a three-dimensional, abstract lighting composition to the theme "Liminal Luminosity," competing students took on the challenge of interpreting the numerous ways light facilitates, defines, or bridges a point of transition, while exploring the spatial, psychological, physiological, and temporal realms of their chosen concepts.
First Place - EDGE: PROBLEMS AND PROMISE J. Parkman Carter Parsons The New School for Design MFA Lighting Design & Architecture Instructor: Nelson Jenkins
Inspired by images of simple points from edges of boundary -- ecological, geopolitical, spiritual -- Carter visually shows that simple edges demarcate everything that we encounter: body, threshold, building, and horizon. Each side of his box explored how light and edge leads us to and from darkness and to various ups-around-the bend. By dimming a single lamp source or by nudging the top half in relation to the bottom-half of the box, one could see the various edges begin to leak volumes of light.
See more photos, winners, and information at the IESNYC website.
The Rundle Lantern
A parking garage in Adelaide, Australia, composed of a big corner-wrapping screen. Designed by brand consulting firm Fusion, their strategy focused on creating a "lantern" for the city to use as a dynamic cultural canvas.
The Rundle Lantern is a unique canvas that uses computer controlled LEDs to illuminate 748 square panels to deliver a platform for digital art. It operates each night from dusk until midnight, with hours hours for special events.
Constructed around the Rundle Street UPark, its purpose is to enrich, invigorate and enliven the intersection of Rundle Street and Pulteney Street.
At 1066 square metres, the Rundle Lantern can be programmed to display numbers, letters and geometric shapes as well as an infinite array of lights, colour, morphing designs and patterns.
The Rundle Lantern was launched on October 24, 2008.
