A very Specialz* first
For the first 6 months of the
2007, Specialz Technical Director, Keith Owen, worked very
closely with Willie Williams, Lighting Designer for U2,
George Michael and Lori Anderson to name but a few, on
Specialz first art installation.
A project of this unusual nature is best described in
the Artists Willie William's own words:
"Lumia Domestica" came about as
a result of being asked to create an installation for the
Turnpike Gallery in Leigh, Greater Manchester. I'd done
installation work before, but only ever in extraordinary
buildings like Canterbury Cathedral and the Southbank
Centre. Being given a blank white space with nothing to
respond to was a very different kind of challenge but a very
interesting one.
A thousand ideas later I decided
to make something that would play with the way light has
been used to create 'light shows'. From the earliest lumia
experiments to modern day moving lights the principle is the
same - it requires a light source, something to make colour
and then a piece of glass to focus or diffract the output.
Quite how we got from there to cake stands I can't quite
remember, but the notion of taking humble, if not hideous,
domestic objects and using them to make the aurora borealis
was an opportunity :
I couldn't resist. It was also
important for the process to look absolutely effortless -
like we'd just found these things, shone a light at them and
it all just happened. That's pretty much the result we've
got, but it took a great deal of time and experimentation to
perfect the design of the illuminated turntables to give
them the correct feel and produce the desired result. For
the fabrication, Charlie Kail directed me to Specialz who
worked with me for six months or more, designing,
redesigning, tweaking and fussing till the units were just
right. They also made the revolving wall scones & light-up
radiator covers for me and almost managed not to laugh. I'm
greatly looking forward to the next round of developments".
Keith Owen commented;
"....And so are we! It was
thoroughly intriguing and interesting project that all
at Specialz enjoyed working on especially as we were working
so closely with the designer".
More of Willie's work can be seen
on his website:
http://www.willieworld.com