euroluce showroom installation - melbourne 2011

 

TRANSIENCE OF LIGHT

The Transience of Light was an optical light installation that was designed for the front window of the Euroluce showroom as part of the State of Design Festival 2011. The design responded to the festivals themes of the use of transitional spaces and ideas of the transformative, the active and the activating. The work explored these themes through the notion of transience, something that keeps changing within space and time.

The design was made from over eight thousand ping pong balls which were threaded onto one and a half kilometers of fishing line. The lines of balls were divided into intervals that correspond to the Fibonacci series which was progressively offset horizontally to create a spiraling background pattern. These patterns were then arranged behind one another to create a complex layering of relationships that seem to change when the piece is viewed from different angles.

The hidden qualities of the design became apparent when the viewer was in motion. As such the piece enticed pedestrians and commuters to engage in the perception of a dynamic, flickering and spiraling vision as they moved past the window. To this end the window façade display and the showrooms lighting collection were carefully curated and illuminated so as to work in a delicate harmony in both the interior and exterior and during the day and night.

In reinforcing the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, the design created an effect beyond itself and placed the viewer’s perception as the primary medium that was being manipulated. In doing so it sought to amplify the beauty of the transient and the ephemeral that can charge our urban spaces with curiosity and wonder. Rather than being ‘design that moves’ the design encourages the ‘viewer to move’ in relation to the design and thus become more aware of the shifting light filled tapestry of the city’s fabric.

The project addressed the transient materiality of the urban realm and sought to bring into focus the perceptual potentials that lie within the immaterial nature of the urban façade. In traversing the relationship between light and materiality, the work involved the manipulation of both physical effects and psychological affects. This approach marked a move away from the conception of design as the arrangement objects in space to one where the manifestation of fields of phenomena are used to engulf the viewer in perceptual delight.

 

*Shortlisted: Australian Interior Design Excellence Awards, Event Design category, 2012

 

For a full account of the project visit the - - wordpress site.

 

 

 
 
 
 
DESIGN TEAM : Ross McLeod + Jessica Wood + Li Ting Khoo + Michelle Lim + Martine Scott + Adele Lin + Elly Elsass