Yet another great project from the students at the Royal College of Art's IDE program -- this time, Spanish designer Cristina Ferraz Rigo takes the light out of lamps and pours it all over the place. The thesis project, called (DE)light (remember the days when you could name something with just words and not have to worry about clever punctuation?), uses chemoluminescent reactions to create luminous liquids, then puts them through all sorts of clever applications: taps that dispense light, light in a bottle, streams of light, etc.

According to Rigo, the compounds can glow up to 20 hours, and research suggests they could be made rechargeable with further development. Aims of the project are typically broad and sweeping. Says Rigo:

My aim is to look at all the resources we have and then try to redesign new future scenarios, rather than "redesign" what's already just to make it perform better. In this case, I was curious about the fact that domestic lighting has not changed, essentially, that much since Edison's invention: you always need a power source and a physical device (call it lightbulb, fiberoptic, led). What I wanted to do is to give a total different approach to light, make people realise we can think of objects that surround us different and shape the technological advance a different way.

More images, and video of the liquid light in action, after the jump.

Video (skip to about 35 seconds in for the good bits):