CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Ingo Maurer's Inflatable LED Lighting Fixtures

Core77: I currently have standard fluorescent lighting fixtures as house lighting in my photography studio, and the Blow Me Up is such a vast improvement over those. Consider that those fluorescent fixtures are metal, making them heavy; for safety’s sake they must be hung with chains connected to eye bolts mounted in the ceiling crossbeams, which limits their placement. On top of that the glass fluorescent bulbs are fragile, and anytime the large lighting boom is used in the studio, great care must be taken so as not to strike the fixture and potentially shatter a bulb.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The video in this article is great, and when I started watching it I was thoroughly impressed by how simple it looked. These lights seem very functional for the home/office, but when it comes to theater, I think they would be limited. I cannot imagine them giving off enough light on their own to really light someone's face, even if the actor was holding it. I do think they may be great as a prop, or for backstage use. It would be really cool if they had them in blue. But, for backstage it would be excellent for avoiding broken glass, the only con I can see is the possibility of it popping, or being too bright.

Sarah C said...

While I agree with Hannah that the one light shown isn't practical to light a large or traditional performing space, and they don't have a conventional lighting use, they have tons of possibilities for use in theater.
Using them as set pieces, many together, could provide an interesting effect. Building structures out of them that light up at different times would not just magnify their light exponentially, but also expand the possibilities of using them by lighting up different structures and shapes. You could hang them at strange angles and use them as a 'ceiling' of sorts, or use them to draw the audiences eyes to certain places. They could be used like in light performances, where actors or dancers in all black with LED suits are invisible except for the light being produced. Or you could inflate them and attach them to lines to fly in and out, making movement and light a part of the mood of the set and the production.
I do think in order to do these things you'd need bigger or different sizes, which would require contacting the company, but while I see why there are few practical or traditional lighting applications, I don't agree that their use is necessarily limited - only different.