If you were in Frankfurt for the Light + Building trade fair, you couldn’t miss Whitevoid’s Kinetic Lights system. As well as being displayed on the company’s own stand, it was also on show at the LivingSculpture kinetic installation that it designed and built in cooperation with Philips Lumiblade as the centrepiece for the Philips’ stand (pictured above). Kinetic Lights consists of a flexible array of controllable cable winches with hanging LED light modules. Each light module can be adjusted individually in height and luminance by control software. By synchronizing position and light animation, complex shapes and light patterns can be generated within the array. Any number of modules can be arranged in any spatial configuration. Individually shaped LED modules can be attached to the system to form custom solutions. Additionally, white, coloured, or colour changing lights can be integrated to suit various applications.
As well as the Philips stand, Whitevoid has a number of high-profile installations under its belt. Whitevoid was commissioned to create a kinetic light show to accompany the inaugural presentation of the spectacular Bugatti Veyron, the world’s fastest and most expensive street car, and the new Seat Exeo for the Volkswagen Group Show at the International Motor Show 2011 in Frankfurt (above). 80 Kinetic Lights rods were specifically produced for this event and arranged in a 22 x 8 meter grid with a height movement of 7 meters to perform a ballet of lights.@page_break@
The Crystal Chandelier is a permanent kinetic light art installation for the Tsvetnoy Central Market, a new department store in central Moscow (above). The 14m wide and 6m deep hanging sculpture evokes the impression of a giant chandelier formed by 49 crystal shaped light elements, 2m in height. The installation constantly generates ever-changing shape variations, movement and light animations with individual impressions for the day and night presentation. At night, when the building is closed, the art piece falls into hibernation with only very few movements but a very strong pulsating heartbeat of light. This gives the Tsvetnoy market, with its glass façade, a unique landmark appeal in Moscow’s night scenery.
The Kinetic Lights system from Whitevoid literally made waves when it appeared on Roca’s stand at 100% Design (above). “We integrated a 3D product portfolio on several touch screens and had three reactive video projections triggered behind curved separation walls by the visitors when passing by. The Wave installation was meant as an attractor to get people onto the stand, where Roca staff would then share information about their actual products,” explains Whitevoid CEO Christopher Bauder. Whitevoid has three different light attachments for the Kinetic Lights system at the moment. “We have 180cm LED rods that can be combined to longer rods or other shapes like triangles, squares etc. Then we have spheres in 50cm diameter and the hanging crystal shaped elements of 200cm length and 40cm diameter that we designed for the Moscow department store. But basically any shape of light object can be attached to one or multiple winches. We have a 5 kg maximum lift capacity and 2 Ampere per light channel with four channels available for RGBW (RGB plus white).” www.whitevoid.comwww.kinetic-lights.com
Technology trends – moving lights systems
If you were in Frankfurt for the Light + Building trade fair, you couldn’t miss Whitevoid’s Kinetic Lights system. TFA looks at some recent applications of the technology.
