Gold Lighting Products and Fixtures Design · 2021
Zhu Xiaodi Solo Exhibitions Unlimited Light Art
by Fang Hu
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Lighting Products and Fixtures Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Beijing Puri Lighting Design Co.,LTD.
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 45,294
- Verification code 9915CDEB2D · Verify this award
About Zhu Xiaodi Solo Exhibitions Unlimited Light Art
Zhu Xiaodi Solo Exhibitions Unlimited is a light art installation for an exhibition space of 2000 square meters. Projection lamps cast clear line shadows with sharp boundaries and no distortion. Twenty-four lamps are combined into one unit at the center of the space. The unit is surrounded by lines and resembles a ball with sharp edges. The light covers the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the visitors. Ground illumination reaches 150 lux when all lamps are fully lit. A program fades the light between ten and eighty percent, recalling the changeable nature of Chinese ink painting.
Situated within the expansive territory of contemporary light-based installation practice, this work by Fang Hu represents a sophisticated investigation into the phenomenological properties of linear elements and their capacity to transform ambient illumination into structured visual experience. The artist's approach suggests engagement with traditions spanning from minimalist sculpture's emphasis on industrial materials and serial repetition to the optical experiments of kinesthetically oriented practitioners who explored perception as active process rather than passive reception. The technical achievement lies in the precise orchestration of thousands of individual filaments, each positioned to create collective effects that transcend their individual presence, producing what appears as woven light rather than mere physical structure. The chromatic restraint, limiting the palette to achromatic values, allows subtle variations in reflectivity and angle to generate chromatic suggestion through purely optical means, as warm and cool grays emerge through the interaction of surface and illumination. The compositional decision to juxtapose vertical and horizontal linear systems creates a visual metaphor for intersection and convergence, perhaps evoking broader meditations on the meeting of different forces, perspectives, or temporal streams. The title's reference to unlimited light suggests the work's aspiration toward transcending material boundaries, using physical elements to gesture toward immaterial experience. One might consider how the installation invites viewers to experience duration differently, as the eye travels along seemingly infinite parallel paths, discovering subtle variations within apparent uniformity, and contemplating the relationship between individual elements and collective phenomena.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Light is the existence of waves. We should choose simple and pure light waves. Projection lamps can show the shadows clearly and purely in space with clear boundaries. The projection lamps accurately express our expectation of shadows without twist or distortion. What we need is this kind of "real expression". The viewers should see the original appearance of the object without being disturbed or influenced by various other factors, including the influence from light.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 2000 ㎡
- Production Technology
- After determining the light source, we launched the lamp tests. The next difficulty is how to cover the whole facade with shadows in the limited space. When the angle of a lamp is close to the maximum range, it still can’t be completely covered. We have created combined lamps located in the center of the space, with a total of 24 lamps, and the generated light completely covers the facade. The combined lamps are surrounded by lines and form an integral whole. They look like a "ball" and have sharp edges and corners. Lamp is the body of light, light is used by the lamp, and they are in one. Its light is just right, demonstrating the extraordinary parts of "Rongji".
- Design Challenge
- The actual condition is that the artist requires that the shadows of the lines can clearly cover a space of 10m * 10m * 10m without deformation, dark areas or overlapping of the shadow, especially at the turning point between the facade and the facade. Avoid the discomfort of direct glare to viewers, and they only feel the charm of light and shadow and will not notice the existence of lamps. Match the theme of "Chinese ink painting".
- Project Duration
- The project started in October 2017 in Beijing and finished in January 2018 in Beijing, and was exhibited in Beijing in January 2009.
- Operation Flow
- When all the lamps are 100% lit, the ground illumination can reach 150LUX, and the true lines and the fake lines of the shadows integrating together, without any flaw. The lines appear on the facade, the top surface, the floor, every corner of the space, the viewer's face and body. As long as people enter the space, they are bound to be together with lines.
- Inspiration
- The Chinese ink painting is changeable, and no one can master its rules.
We discussed with artists how to use light to express inscrutability. Finally, we have determined a control mode, in which the light can fade in and out by ten to eighty percent through the program. The man-made inscrutability implies the changes of reality.