Digital crystal
Lights, camera…SPARKLES!
Swarovski has been our recent obsession, cultivating an air of mysticism that leaves curious hankering for more since 1895. Swarovski has continually grown to create legends of crystals. As we were getting our snippets together about the collaboration between Swarovski and Design Museum London to present to you, one of our dear bloggers, Lesly of Lazy Manxcat approached us to be the part of a project she had been working on in collaboration with Swarovski India. And so we snipped out for the snappy crystal therapy. We’ll tell you more about that in the next post along with the launch event (for their Kingdom of Jewels collection in New Delhi) that followed.
As for now, coming back to Swarovski’s latest contribution to the worlds of art and design, Design Museum and Swarovski collaborated to bejewel the bling world with the “Digital Crystal” exhibition (5 September- 13 January). It is based on the changing world where people are idyllically seduced by the digital age, where memory and personal possessions are now in online prison and where the spruced up intangibility and surrealism takes over reality. Among the 15 style casters who have produced new or especially updated installations for the exhibition and stole the scene with their whimsical designs are Ron Arad, Maarten Baas, Random International, Yves Béhar, Troika and Fredrikson Stallard. The sensory overload and technological assaults of the exhibition expanded the capabilities of the Swarovski crystal. From Marcus Tremonto’s 3D holographic table to Maarten Baas’ simple structure of a person in a house, the exhibition was a mélange of glittering beauties. This haute couture exhibition marked the support of Swarovski for the pro’s prowess.
A class act?
[ Deyan Sudjic - Design Museum curator ]
[ Digital Crystal designers L-R Back Row: Deyan Sudjic Design Museum; Anton Alvarez; Ian Stallard, Fredrikson Stallard; Philippe Malouin; Hilda Hellstrom. Front Row L-R: Conny Freyer, Troika; Patrik Fredrikson, Fredrikson Stallard; Florian Ortkrass, Random International; Paul Cocksedge; Nadja Swarovski; Ron Arad ]
[ Ron Arad’s ‘Lolita’ chandelier. ]
Its 2000 or so Swarovski crystals are embedded with LEDs that allow visitors’ text messages and tweets to be momentarily emblazoned on its twisting form. ‘It’s the opposite of carving a wall with words,’ says Arad. ‘This is ephemeral.’
[ Thought Cloud by Maarten Baas ]
[ Designer Philippe Malouin, with his 'Blur' artwork, a series of visual images – realised through light and motion ]
Malouin says the piece alludes to memory through the “transformation from its solid state to its accelerated state,” as it retains the memory of its simple underlying design while transforming it through movement. “It doesn’t always spin – it’s programmed to reveal its different states,” he adds.
[ Hilda Helstrom, with 'The Monument', a crystal and jesmonite object representing mythical symbolism, which accompanied by a minute long film tells the story of Swarovski’s headquarters in Wattens, Austria. ]
[ Arik Levy, with his Osmosis Interactive Arena installation ]
Crystal is in itself an evocative medium. ‘When you have a crystal, you always keep on moving it, because its kinetic light effect is so thrilling,’ says designer Arik Levy.
His ‘Osmosis Interactive Arena’ installation allows visitors to transform a digitally-generated crystal through their own movement, calling in to question how human actions are remembered by nature.
[ Unfamiliar Mass by Hye-Yeon Park ]
Cut a cross-section through Hye-Yeon Park’s 30cm crystal ring and you’ll uncover the hidden and instantly familiar profile of a polar bear. By concealing the bear within an unrecognisable form, Unfamiliar Mass highlights the illusory nature of memories that are shaped only by our wishful imagination and impressions gleaned from two-dimensional visual media.
[ Wrapping crystal by Anton Alvarez, a spinning machine that spins exquisite Swarovski yarn embedded with crystals around objects, wrapping and binding them forever keeping them safe and secure.]
(Source: Wallpaper )
