White lasers, capable of projecting light 360 degrees, illuminated blacked-out spaces at the Lexus exhibition during Milan design week last month.
For its 2018 pavilion, Lexus enlisted Japanese designer Sota Ichikawa of Double Negatives Architecture and culinary trio Altatto to create a multi-sensorial experience at Milan's Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia.
On the grounds of the Chengdu International Garden Festival, The Lantern unfolds like a translucent lamp, emitting an ethereal glow. Designed by TLS Landscape Architecture, the installation invites visitors into a maze reflecting both the literal and the abstract nature of humble bamboo, which bears an enduring presence in the Chinese city.
In its form, The Lantern draws on the strength and humbleness of the material which is always hollow at the core. Reflecting this, the concentric installation is shaped from a bamboo outer frame and a steel structure wrapped in white acrylic mesh, encircling a hollow center that emanates a mystical, elemental glow.
Panasonic illuminates the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, Japan using the world’s largest permanent projection mapping display and a series of joyous, live animations. The mapping display and its light installation-like visuals are remotely played and managed using cloud-controlled spatial production by Panasonic AcroSign and Remotely Managed Service.
Panasonic also shares that this is the largest architectural permanent projection mapping display in the world, securing the Guinness World Record. The live animations began projecting on February 25th, 2024 and since then, a continuous number of moving images is played at night, lighting up the dark skyline of Tokyo with spatial production.
At the 2023 edition of the Manar Abu Dhabi festival, conceptual artist Carsten Höller unveils his latest public light art exhibit, titled Abu Dhabi Dots. As the second installment in the artist’s Dots series, the immersive installation takes center stage at the beach, where 20 spotlights in vibrant colors, follow the movements of the participants and allow them to play a ‘reward and punishment’ game with each other. In this game, initially comprising 14 red, three blue, two green, and one white dot, players have the freedom to ‘upgrade’ their assigned color. Red dots can progress to blue by overlapping with a blue dot, followed by advancement to green and then white. Overlapping causes others to be downgraded by one color step. If all red dots form an unbroken chain, all 20 dots become white. The game continues until seven or more white dots no longer overlap, signaling the end, and the dots reset to their initial configuration.
Yayoi Kusama is the biggest-selling female artist in the world. And in her bright-red wig and quirky polka-dot ensembles, she is also one of the most instantly recognizable.
Most of her light infused infinity room installations convey the psychological, emotional remnants of past memories and trauma translated into visceral landscapes.
"In Scandinavia, the winter is long dark and cold, which is why light and the sun is treasured in these parts. In the lands of the Scandinavians, a tradition of fire and ice has been passed down from generation to generation. Every winter many families in some parts of Scandinavia, build a snow lantern."
from Jolablot
"A snölykta or Swedish snow lantern can be made when there's enough kramsnö (snow that can be squished together to make snowballs, formed at 0C or slightly higher temperatures) to make several snöbollar (snowballs), but instead of using these as ammunition in a snowball fight, they are put to a more wholesome use. You can build a pyramid or tower shape out of the balls, and place a candle or tealight (or several, if your lantern is big enough) in the centre."
"Inspired by local weather phenomena, Creative Machines installed an interactive, LED-illuminated sculpture entitled Chinook Arc by artists Joe O’Connell and Blessing Hancock. The sculpture is located in the City of Calgary and drew its form from the Chinook arch, a cloud formation that periodically blankets the city, the Canadian prairies, and Great Plains. The actual Chinook arch results in brilliant colors transforming the sky. Likewise, the Chinook Arc sculpture is a circular band of light that dynamically changes colors at night mirroring the monumental effects of clouds. The artwork contains an optical sensor which allows visitors to control the sculpture’s lighting by waving their hands or playing a video on their cellphone."
from Inhabitat
Mirror Mirror was commissioned by the City of Alexandria’s Office of the Arts. The artwork takes the form of an opened circle, 25 feet in diameter and 8 feet high, that visitors can walk inside and around. This structure in-the-round, like a lighthouse, is both a place to look outward at your surroundings and a beacon to be seen from afar and watched. The materials and interactive nature of the artwork reference the special type of lens used at Alexandria’s own historic Jones Point Lighthouse – called the Fresnel lens – the most advanced lens technology of the 1800s, which used a series of prisms to concentrate the light source and direct it into a narrow horizontal beam that was projected outward.
Playing with the ideas of reflection and refraction of light, Mirror Mirror’s interior and exterior are clad with a mirrored surface that reflects the surrounding environment in unexpected ways. Through a panoramic array of mirrors and sound-responsive lights, Mirror Mirror will visually blend
the waterfront, the fabric of Old Town, and the activity of pedestrians in the new park. While the exterior is a monochromatic mirror that reflects the urban environment, the river and visitors themselves, the interior’s mirrored surface is tinted with the full color spectrum, providing another layer of vibrancy and interest. The artwork is also programmed to respond to sound with light, allowing visitors to interact with the artwork and affect its appearance using their voices and bodies. LED fixtures inside each of the artwork’s vertical components are activated by sound and respond by producing light, transforming the front-facing panels from mirrored to transparent, while the interior panels remain mirrored, creating an infinite, colorful reflection and forest of light.
Photos: Alan Tansey
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