Three Men in a Boat and new light of Holland
21 december 2015 creative lighting design education festival of light lighting installation lighting show urban innovations
Where can students of ITMO University go in Amsterdam, what discoveries do city lighting in Europe make, and why is the national unity and light important more than ever—all this in the material about the overseas trip of students of the Higher school of light design of ITMO University
It was impossible to catch two hares: light festival in Lyon was cancelled because of tragic events in Paris on November 13. Several million tourists didn’t arrive in the city. The locals, nevertheless, decided to follow the old tradition and at the same time to show national unity having lit up candles on the eighth of December in a tribute to the memory about the dead. Daniel Knipper showed his solidarity who was the author of the only remained light installations from 80 planned for the festival. The same evening French lighting designer designed images of people and names of the victims of the act of terrorism on one of the buildings, calling the installation Regards (from English — "respect").
More for ours
Forum LED, the European exhibition of LED technologies, light production and systems became another significant action of the European trip of students of ITMO University. The exhibition took place from December 7 to December 8 and collected 2,4 thousand visitors and 107 exhibitors, 36 of which are foreign participants. Besides the exposition part, the exhibition included a business program — the international conference with participation of 173 people and an investment forum in which businessmen presented their startup projects.
Just compare: an exhibition in Lyon is not as large as Interlight Moscow powered by Light+Building in Moscow — Ilya Gladkov tells. — There is only one hall for exhibitors. All classical achievements are presented: LED technologies, lamps, special measuring devices.
Russian observers note the difference between these two exhibitions. The “Interlight” has an expressed fair character, numerous tournaments are arranged here, the visitors are actively drawn to the exhibition space. Forum LED is a chamber action, for those who came to the exhibition with the purpose to acquire special goods. Besides, French is the basic communication language.
Went along one route
Light festival in Amsterdam became the final part of the European trip of the young company. Historically the festival was created at the initiative of private companies and today it is supported not only by business community, but also by municipalities, institutes and cultural organizations.
The program of the festival is divided into water (Water Colors) and foot (Illuminade) routes. The action lasts 55 days from November 28, 2015 to January 17, 2016. The Russian discoverers of light got only to the water route as the foot one was going to start on December 10, 2015, and at that time masters of "The Higher School of Light Design" of ITMO University were already at home, in St. Petersburg.
The recovered light
During the walk one could see light installation in the form of a letter on the water “Dearest friend” (translated from English — "the most dear friend"). The heading is taken from a greeting in the letter of a famous Netherlands philosopher rationalist Benedict Spinoza to his intellectual friend Ludwig Meyer.
Another example — light installation Strangers in the Light (from English — "wanderers in light"), the altered name of the well-known song of Frank Sinatra “Strangers in the Night” (translated from English — "wanderers in the night"). The installation consists of two high sculptures of several meters. The sculpture represents two little men from the traffic light — one is green, the other —is red. The authors of the installation thought that these little men will never meet as, when the green little man lights up, the red one disappears, so they decided to embody acquaintance of two signs in light installation.
The main thing that we visually saw during our trip — it is the European approach to usage of light: economy gives rise to reserved decisions — Vasily Zhitlov summarizes. — The Europeans don't save on the equipment and materials, for example, using expensive light-emitting diodes thus save on the electric power. Let there is little light, but in some decisions it is justified. There is no bright illumination or a bright media advertizing on the facades of houses, but show-windows radiate pleasant and attractive light. There are no bright effects at light festival, but there are non-standard and creative ideas connected both with cultural heritage, and ordinary life.
