For lighting designers, light as a medium is as essential as the paint to the painter or perhaps the granite to the sculptor, and just as the above we like to mix our colours and choose our chisels, metaphorically speaking. We constantly thrive to explore new developments and technologies to widen our spectrum, but in the field of architectural lighting design the canvas often dictates the choice of tools we use and how, therefore some us step further afield to explore and experiment with lighting in a purely artistic way.

Ingo kalecinski, senior designer in dpa‘s london studio, together with a collective of other designers with a passion for light set up GNI projects, a team committed to creating innovative and experimental installations with light.

As part of the UNESCO International Year of Light, GNI and nine other high profile international artists were invited by Light Collective to create a piece for ‘Lumieres: The Play of Brilliants’, which is currently being held at the Elephant Paname Gallery in Paris.

Conceived to respond to the historic surroundings, GNI created their piece ‘Implied Candelabra’, which explores and challenges the nature and conventions of the traditional chandelier. Using laser technologies and the principles of reflection and refraction to create a graphical 3-dimensional chandelier, it invites the viewer to explore its meaning through its changing perspectives.

A total of 40 red laser modules and 80 mirrors are mounted via specially designed gimbal brackets to a minimalistic space frame core structure, which measures approximately 1300mm in height and has a diameter of approximately 900mm. The entire structure is suspended from an original ceiling mounting detail as it would have been used for a chandelier in the past and hovers just above head height at approximately 2300mm.

The exhibition closes on the 31st of May and if you find yourself in Paris before then, it’s worth a visit to explore this incredible mix of works of light within the beautiful setting of the gallery Elephant Paname.

Ingo Kalecinski

Photography courtesy of Tommaso Gimigliano and Nick Bazin