Introduction:
Lighting is integral to space. It is omnipresent, functional, atmospheric, and dynamic and is one of the major factors along with architecture and furniture that creates ambience. It allows one to highlight areas of activity within an environment. Lighting gives character to a space and generates interplay of shadows thus creating mood and energy.
Lighting design in India is very much in its incumbent stage and it remains a non-interactive accessory. Much of the exploration we see remains limited to playing with shadows, textures, forms, materials etc. The pieces of lighting we see around us lack the ingenious factors that would prompt us to engage with them.
Design Brief:
I propose to develop a range of lighting that is practical yet humorous and brings originality to everyday mundane spaces. The range will attempt to engage the user beyond the monotonous interactions that surrounds it and utilise clay and glass as the primary materials. It could either be produced in an industrial space, be hand crafted or could even be a combination of the two.
Project Description:
This project proposes to explore interactivity within lighting by adding elements that could inspire people, cheer them up, make them think or be subversive.
A major setback of this humorous/ironic design is that it could be a one hit wonder – funny in the shop but wears off when you get it home. During the course of this project I will consciously attempt to avoid this style. The element of surprise, an added quirk or play will be based on cultural associations and significance, middle class humour that creates delight and keeps people interested in the product.
The interactions could be mechanical, electronic or visual.
Context:
Monkey business is a recently established ceramic product design studio based out of a quaint cottage in the western suburbs of Mumbai formed by 3 NID alumni.
Monkey business does projects for restaurants (tableware), hotels and resorts, murals and certain kind of sculptural work, lifestyle products for homes, spas and gardens, lighting, signage systems and anything else in clay.
The idea of monkey business is primarily to experiment with clay, ceramic, combining other materials and exploring new processes and techniques. The products designed are mostly handmade with a lot of attention to design and detail.
Monkey Business has given me an open project brief based on their plans to launch a range of lighting in the market in a span of 4-5 months.
Research Questions
- Apart from play with texture, pattern and basic form for décor what more can a piece of lighting provide to an environment?
- What if the product could play more of a part in the user’s daily interaction with it and the objects around it?
- What are the current trends in products related to light?
- Highlight and focus the space of my interest. – Where do I want to position my product: Is it a personal or a public space?
- Could I identify the spaces based on it’s functionality within them eg : Home > functional decorative / Office : functional / Leisure : Decorative.
- Research products in the area of sculpture and statement.
- Duchamp’s readymades / decontextualised objects
- Installation art and art in product spaces.
- Light Designers like Ingo Muarer, Paul Cocksedge
Approach/ Process:
Phase 1 (Research & Material Exploration):
The initial phase of my project would involve researching/ reading/ speculating on various subjects while exploring the following categories:
1. context/environment
2. people/culture
3. materials
4. case studies - looking at installation art , study products that bridge the gap between art and design
Phase 2 (Concept Development)
This phase of the project will involve ideating, sketching and conceptualising based on the data and expertise gathered from the research and exploration stage. This will be the one of the most important stage in the project.
Phase 3 (Prototyping)
This phase of the project will require atleast 3-4 weeks for complete and detailed execution of the products and might require some expert help in building process.
Materials/Resources:
- The workshop at monkey business
- Materials such as glass, ceramic, metal and wood
- Basic electricals
- Basic sensors, switches (electronics)?
- Arduino & Processing forums?
- Internet
- British Council Library for books
(People)
- Victor Vina, Interaction designer
- Aziz Kachwalla, Product Designer
- Thomas Loius, Mentor & Ceramic Artist
- Rekha Goyal, Ceramic Artist
Learning Outcomes:
Apart from enabling me to manage a vast project like this within a given time frame without compromising on the quality and intrinsic worth of what I have set out to do, the other possible learning outcomes I foresee are:
- As a product designer this project will help me evolve by allowing me to explore with different materials/form/space essentially the key elements that products are built upon.
- As a person, I am curious about people – their perceptions, eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, the cultures they build, the societies they live in and the customs they follow. This project will boost and encourage this curiosity.
- It will allow me to be a part of a pioneering exploration of lighting in India.
- Working with people from the industry will give me a professional insight that I, as a student, lack.
- Working with electronics again will help me deepen my knowledge further.
