Status: 2nd Place, Lightcycle competition
Program: Product prototype
Collaborators: Tai Snaith and Simon Knott
“We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a ‘slowmotion catastrophe’ one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.” − David Suzuki
The slow motion catastrophe lamp is here to remind us that every time we switch on the lamp we are contributing to global warming. We may be living in what will be referred to in the future as ‘the ice cream age.’ We will tell our grandchildren about a magical time when we could purchase a soft serve from a Mr Whippy van for 40cents and we could enjoy the semi frozen cream in a cone whilst walking along the beach, without it melting in front of our eyes.
The lamp is made from 100 layers of coloured acrylic sheet, created through a process of first sculpting the ice cream form, then scanning the form with a 3D scanner before translating the data to a laser cutter and assembling the layers by hand.
Original plasticine model
Digitising the plasticine model using a hand-held 3D scanner
Screen grab of the scan result
Rebuilt digital model with contour lines
Laser cutting the contour profiles
Stacking the contours back together
Completed lamp