I’ve got interactivity on the brain this week, or, perhaps I should say, certain products have got me thinking in interactive mode. Yesterday, the Consequence Lamp was a potent reminder of our all-too-common tendency to squander electricity, while today brings yet another product to make us aware of our surroundings: the Living Light by Joonsoo Kim and Hyunwook Lee of Studio Joon and Jung.

Living Light. Designed and Manufactured by Joonsoo Kim and Hyunwook Lee of Studio Joon and Jung.

The Living Light is Like a Mood Ring for the new Millennium

You remember mood rings don’t you? Those cheesy chotchkes that purported to decipher your emotional state merely by inhabiting your finger. Living Light can’t really tell you how you feel, but it can take the relative pulse of the room and brighten it up accordingly.

Joon and Jung’s piece is a floral lattice work of a suspension lamp. The shade—constituting the spatial bulk of the piece—is an intricate network of dynamic criss-crossing wooden lathe controlled by an ingenious mechanized clockworks on the ceiling side.

The gears in the former mesh and move to facilitate an opening up—a sort of ritualized blossoming—of the Living Light’s shade. And this is no random motion but rather a carefully calibrated response to the human energy beneath the Living Light’s live canopy.

As more people gather in the vicinity, the Living Light clicks into gear, opening up all apertures to shine a greater light on the greater numbers beneath. Kim and Lee achieved this nifty trick by concocting a microchip powered by an algorithm that intuitively responds to greater or lesser numbers of people. Thus, a party of four is treated to a full blossoming and maximum emission of light, while a lone soul is content with Living Light’s gentle contraction and corresponding decrease in relative wattage.

Via FrameMag.

About the Designers: South Koreans Joonsoo Kim and Hyunwook Lee met in 2008 at the somewhat unlikely locale of Eindhoven, Netherlands while studying at the renowned Eindhoven Academy. Since then, they’ve pooled their talents into Studio Joon and Jung. The duo focuses on creating abstract yet relevant designs that enhance the connection between people and the surrounding environment. The designers’ experience in two vastly different cultures has given them a unique perspective and a singular style: “The influence of Dutch Design and our native Korean aesthetic makes us storytellers with a marked formal language and strong design identity.”