Lights, Action!

This week we made fantastic light designs. We challenged the kids to do this using only foil, pipe cleaners and a hand held torch or a string of fairy lights. By constraining the materials available, we forced them to explore the possibilities and limits of what you can do with foil -squish it, mould it, fold it, fan it, puncture it...

When we turned off the lights in the studio, the fun began. There was lots of exploration of the qualities that foil might contribute to the design- whether the light is reflected by it, passing through a space in it or distorted by an edge of it.

A hanging garland with spiralled foil elements creates an attractive chandelier. 

Some of our students made sculptures-moulded with foil-to project interesting shadows.

 Others were entranced by the reflective properties of foil. This design used the light bouncing off a core of foil. The curled pipe-cleaners pop out of the illuminated centre like stamens.

Light sabres were popular of course...

In this case the light shines through some fluorescent paper and the pipe cleaners cast an interesting shadow.

This student noticed that the light itself could be used as a spinning top and started to add elements extending from the side.  Although this idea is not fully developed, this is the kernel of a new design concept: incorporating motion into a light fixture.