Liberation of Light

Dutch artists, architects and designers are rated amongst the worldwide frontrunners in applying new lighting technology such as LED and OLED. This is demonstrated by the exhibition Liberation of Light, which first showed to great acclaim in fall 2010 at the Designhuis Eindhoven. The traveling exhibition was part of the Dutch participation at Beijing Design Week in fall 2011 and represented the Netherlands at Guangzhou Design Week form 9 to 12 December. The project is a co-production between Yksi Design in Eindhoven and Design Cooperation Brainport.

Poetic and living installations by artist Daan Roosegaarde, surprising lighting objects by Dorette Sturm and by Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta, the interactive light wall Nebula as educational children’s toy by the Eindhoven-based company NYOYN, and the remarkable use of light and lighting in public spaces and for buildings by Har Hollands and UNStudio: these are just some examples from the exhibition, Liberation of Light. 

Liberation of Light shows that LEDs are much more than small, sustainable ‘lamps’. With the advent of LEDs (light emitting diodes), OLEDs (organic LEDs) and related technologies light has literally been freed from the casing of that familiar bulb, spotlight or fluorescent rod. Designers now can make light objects with different shapes, materials and functions far beyond what was possible before. Spaces, both indoors and outdoors, will be lit in different ways. In fact light is now making the transition from analog to digital. It can be controlled with the help of computers, can be made to measure and can even be interactive. All this offers new opportunities for safety, health, beauty, sustainability and quality of life. A light revolution has manifest itself - as big as or perhaps even greater than the invention of the lightbulb 150 years ago. 

As Emile Aarts, vice president and scientific programme director of Philips Research and professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology and International Lighting Institute says: “On several levels relating to light - functional, emotional, biological, social, cultural and regarding control and sustainability - there are new possibilities and challenges.”