#1minuteLamp

A few weeks ago, the MoDiP team visited the London Design Fair.  One of the exhibitions caught our eyeand we asked them to tell us more abut their project.

Julia Pulman (Engagement Officer) 

 

 #1minuteLamp: a world of discovering materials

Installation setup. Photo © Marleen Sleeuwits during TodaysArt 2017

 

#1minuteLamp (1 minute lamp) is an interactive installation that uses light and technology in an entertaining way to show how creativity and participation can influence social behaviour. It is an instrument that informally connects people and helps them relate to one another.

The installation allows everybody to experience the story of everyday objects. People can use various plastic and non-plastic materials and combine them with their own imagination to make ephemeral compositions on the interactive surface of the installation.

You are free to pick your favourites from the cloud of various coloured objects hanging above the  base.  This has a weight sensitive surface made up of rectangular modules. The rectangles light up, acting like a switch when they are tipped over by the weight of the objects positioned on the surface. This enables you to play with materials and make the most of your imagination. In this easy way the installation reduces lighting to a gesture of addition and balance, transforming lamps into spontaneous assemblages.

Spontaneous composition. Photo © Rick Rossenham during

Salone del Mobile Milan, Fuorisalone (Ventura Lambrate), 2017

Learn about sustainability

People think that once something is broken, it’s garbage. It doesn’t have to be like this. #1minuteLamp enables people to learn about materials and sustainability. Plastic has become an important component of our life, integrated in most of the objects we currently use. This consequently generates waste. In order to teach people about sustainability #1miunteLamp makes a library of about 150 materials available for participation (different types of plastics and also textiles). Most of them have been discarded for different reasons. With the installation, they are brought back in use as parts with aesthetic potential. Making a spontaneous lamp invites people to understand material properties and how light propagates through different densities, volumes, or colours.

Assemblage lamp two plastic pieces from solar panels transport, blue and red resin pieces of different densities, plastic cylinder © Studio Catinca Tilea

Create & collaborate

#1MinuteLamp empowers the creativity of every individual and boosts team work, especially because making a beautiful object is so effortless. You don’t have to think too much; you just assemble, remove, or even add to somebody else’s composition; if you don’t like what comes out, you can easily redo it in a different way. In this game-like setup, ideas emerge informally. They get improved in no time by experiment and get transferred organically between participants.

The composition below is a good illustration of this effortless team work, during the Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milan. A diverse composition resulted from the participation of multiple visitors during the exhibition. Each one contributed to this collective work by adding or subtracting according to their own imagination, while interacting with one another and broadening their understanding on how materials and light actually work together.

Composition on weight-sensitive surface. Photo © Rick Rossenham during Salone del Mobile Milan, Fuorisalone (Ventura Lambrate), 2017

Social behaviour by participation

#1minuteLamp is an installation created by Catinca Tilea. Catinca is a multidisciplinary designer based in Rotterdam and her work philosophy is that design could and should be accessible for everybody. This is why the studio seeks to engage audiences as (conscious) participants in the creative process.

As a representation of this philosophy #1minuteLamp started from the belief that everybody can make a change; an educated citizen is a better citizen. The installation empowers people by participation: anyone is encouraged to co-create and tinker around. #1minuteLamp helps people reflect on design, production, and consumption in a constructive way. Making a spontaneous lamp lets you discover on your own how you can make a positive change in the world.

Detail of its weight-sensitive surface; how it works © Studio Catinca Tilea

  

Alina Turdean (Interior arch. – Studio Catinca Tilea)