The Serpent Luminaire |Jacob + MacFarlane

Architects Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane are commissioned by the Paris-based furniture and art gallery Moaroom to design a lighting body, which would evoke the sense of the new, unknown and in this way, through the means of design, are chosen to provoke visitors’ desire to explore the unexplored.Looking at the light installation, it depicts the designers’ strive to reach fro something much beyond the current and very usual design trends. They add a third dimension to the trend for patterns and this is evident in the swift twist of the repetitive element of the product. Jakob and MacFarlane’s design approach stems from two notions and the outcome is intended to combine and synergize both of them: the first notion is about nature and its perpetual & infinite needs; and the second is the growing trend to address sustainability and respect towards the environment.

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What the outcome is turns out to be a very radical trend transformation – a secession from the stereotypical lighting design bodies which in the most usual case are suspended on a single chord and represent a 360° rotational sweep of a warm-hued cloth. The stunning thing about Jakob&MacFarlane is that they use both the opaque and transparent in order to communicate their message for originality and thinking outside the box. The repetition of the single element is achieved through the inclusion of strips of aluminum with integrated LED.

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This dynamic and emotional composition now starts to evoke visual ideas, analogies, and responses. One such is that it is reminiscent of a digitalized, yet organic serpent. In terms of visual identity, the serpent is a symbol well recognized in a number of cultures. So one has the freedom to perceive the serpent object as and object of seduction according to Christianity. Yet however, one might also want to associate the serpent with the notion of wisdom if one imagines it wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge. This namely metaphoric analogy justifies Jakob&MacFarlane’s idea that their design seeks to promote for discovering what is yet to be found, to understand what is still obscure, to shed light on the shadow and thus reveal the unknown.

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From the architects’ point of designing, the programmatic experience is achieved namely due to the architects’ programmatic and structural way of seeing objects. Their suspension thus challenges for viewers to become more aware of the dark worlds, new sounds, new forms of life and open up to new experiences that light can offer.

Courtesy of Jacob + MacFarlane