It is very comforting to come home in the evening and turn on a light. ideally, it is not a fluorescent hanging from the ceiling. something soft and gentle. something to welcome in the night. something with a dimmer switch to modulate the mood. i love light bulbs. they tell a very straightforward story. they...
Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi (of Face Visualizer fame) have unveiled a new project called Particles. Particles is a room-filling installation made of floating “light particles” that fly around and form glowing shapes. Visitors can choose a shape on a touchscreen panel and watch as hundreds of wirelessly controlled, glowing orbs create their selection in...
James Carpenter Design Associates opened their studio doors to Cooper-Hewitt Members on October 6. Members were captivated by the ‘show and tell’ of prismatic effects of transmitted and reflected light. JCDA seeks to bring light into our lives in a way we recognize, translating its abundance or rareness, and always its richness. Masters of...
Over the next two weeks on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team blog their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’. Two Clever Triennial Entries Help Us Track Our Energy Consumption The PSA’s have been espousing “The More You Know”...
Why? Most people have no sense of their energy usage until they receive their monthly utility bill. The Power Aware cord is a poetic gesture that indicates energy is flowing to an appliance through glowing pulses and intensity of light. For instance, changing the volume on stereo equipment becomes immediately visible, as does the silent...
Most people go to exhibitions to look at the objects. Eggheads go to read the labels. Design geeks (and museum professionals like myself) want to study the installation itself. How are the platforms and cases constructed? How are the texts laid out? How are supplementary graphics handled? Cooper-Hewitt’s new exhibition Design for a Living World...
During a visit to Cooper-Hewitt about a year and a half ago, West-coast felt-maker Janice Arnold was intrigued by the form of the museum’s conservatory. Its domed roof and iron mullions resemble the radiating struts of the framework of a yurt—the circular tent dwelling of the nomadic tribes who first created felt. Next week, Arnold...
Ingo Maurer’s most lively exhibit in the historic Andrew Carnegie mansion was his installation of the Carnegies’ portraits above the grand staircase. Andrew and Louise Carnegie gazed out over the magical exhibition Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer and provided their own commentary on the mansion’s transformation under the lighting wizard.
Ingo Maurer and his extraordinary team of designers and technicians have managed to dramatically transform the second floor of the Carnegie Mansion into a fiesta of lights and objects. But Maurer uses a sensitive touch while maintaining the original character of this grand domestic space. If anything, he has made it even more intimate and...
