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Vienna Design Week 2010: The Bulb Fiction Show

By Jessica Charlesworth - October 6, 2010

in Vienna Design Week 10

Klaus Engelhorn, host of Bulb Fiction, tries on POLKA's 'Perlenlicht' prototype for size.

In the Hernals neighborhood of Vienna, we visited the Bulb Fiction show at the Klaus Engelhorn Depot, a location run by Klaus Engelhorn and Michael Turkiewicz for the past 3 years. Curated by Michael Turkiewicz from designandart.at and Gabriele Ruff, selections of lighting objects from the late 1960s to the early 1970s were exhibited amongst a range of newly commissioned and contemporary lighting designs by various designers from the present day.

A selection of Vienna-based designers were asked to create a light source loosely based on the question, 'What will happen to lamp designs when incandescent bulbs run out?,' suggesting the impending demise of the incandescent lamp and its transition to the energy saving variety.

Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler with their Relumine lamp

mischer'traxler introduced their fantastic Relumine lamp, two lamp typologies share/fight for the lightsource of a fluorescent lightbulb.

POLKA introduced their oversized pearl necklace-like prototype lamp entitled Perlenlicht. As explained by Monica Singer of POLKA herself:

The over dimensional pearl necklace as a wall-mounted light object, [ ] plays with changing the dimension and the context of an object of daily life, the pearl necklace, as well as its reference to traditional Viennese staircase lighting, is a simple glass globe.

Also on display were claassen & partner's Van Zipper light; a light source that can adapt its strength according to how many zips are open, and PRINZGAU/podgorschek's 'Kreis -Kugell - Zufall' chandelier produced by renowned glass manufacturers J&L Lobmeyer.

Other pieces included Michael Anastassiades' Kinetic -2 Pendulum Lamp, Charlotte Dumoncel d'Argence' Vanitas Lamp, NEXT architects & Aura Luz Melis,' Slow Glow Lamp, Tejo Remy's Milk Bottle, Florence Doleac, Joel Degermark, Lonneke Gordijn/Drift, Rody Graumans, Stuart Haygarth, Tomas Hoke, Chris Kabel and Marcus Tremonto.

Photo credit: kollektiv fischka

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Rob

14 years ago

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Erm, Energy saving light bulbs are still very inefficient compared to led bulbs, a good quality led bulb will last 10 years and save more energy than a ccfl energy "saving" bulb. Plus they contain far more hazardous materials than other technology, and companies like GE and Siemens are pushing this as they want a return on their incandescent tooling, as ccfl's are similar in construction.

In terms of design there are very few designers who actually grasp the newer technologies like led because the science involved with the optics is very hard to balance within the constraints of the desired aesthetic, and being able to do this is quite niche.

Lamp designers have a future, they just need to embrace a newer technology along with all the possibilities and limitations it possesses. being limited to round light emitting objects isn't there with leds anymore :)
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