darc night 2019

With iMelt, the lighting designers of Light Bureau wanted to evoke feelings of wintertime by creating a hideaway that would entice people to enter and become a part of the installation through their interactions with it. This temporary installation consisted of a transparent white fabric, evocative of Christmas wrapping paper, hanging in parallel rows inside a steel case. The pieces in each layer gradually became shorter as they approached the structure’s central point, creating a welcoming place for the visitor in the resulting negative space: an igloo offering shelter throughout the winter.

The installation could be appreciated from different perspectives. As visitors walked around the outside of the artwork, the igloo shape emerged; when they moved inside, on the other hand, their attention shifted to the fabric, the space’s internal geometry and the light patterns, seen from a new point of view. Here, visitors could enjoy the fascination of the light refracted on the transparent fabric, which created gentle patterns of light and shadow as it swayed.

The lighting designed by Light Bureau was intended to recreate the moment in which the winter light filters through the layers of ice in an igloo: passing through the hanging fabric, the light created depth and defined the individual levels of the structure. Thirteen Neva 7.2 linear profiles (RGBW) were arranged in rows on the roof of the installation, and each one of them was programmed using a DMX controller according to a precise lighting scene.

Within the programming, two scenes evoked daylight and its passage through the ice walls; the first presented a uniform transition from warm to cool light with a wave-like effect ... the warm light pushed the cool light away and vice versa. This regular rhythm was broken up by the second effect, which used a series of bright flashes to present a cold light that filters through the various thicknesses of ice layers ... a cool light through the layers. The final effect was a dynamic light cycle that lasted 1 minute 30 sec, the time needed by visitors to contemplate the installation and fully experience the light inside the space.