DIGITAL CRYSTAL:
SWAROVSKI AT THE DESIGN MUSEUM
5 September 2012 – 13 January 2013
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Hard Coded Memory by Troika (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
Building on this platform, the Design Museum and Swarovski are now challenging some of the most exciting talents in contemporary creativity to explore the future of memory in the fast-developing digital age in an exciting new exhibition that will run from 5 September until 13 January.
Explaining the central premise of Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum says: ‘Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum explores the meaning of memory in the digital age, with the demise of the analogue era our relationship and connection with personal memory, photographs, diaries, letters, time and ephemera is changing.’
Deyan continues: ‘Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum takes this as its starting point, to question the future and our relationship with the changing world, where it seems all too easy to lose connection with the tangible and the real, as we move ever faster to a digital age where memory and the personal possessions we once held so highly are now online or gone in an instant.’
Digital Crystal - Swarovski at the Design Museum. Designers (Courtesy of Felix Kunze)
In addition to specially commissioned pieces by a new generation of designers, Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum will also feature a select number of works from the Swarovski archives and by juxtaposing old and new, the exhibition offers up for debate the changing nature of our relationship with objects, and even with time.
Nadja Swarovski comments: ‘It is an honour that the Design Museum has chosen to collaborate with Swarovski on this forward-thinking exhibition. To work with such creative minds and to see how they have responded to the brief is fascinating and offers new insights into our changing relationship with memory and technology. Swarovski’s passionate commitment to cutting-edge contemporary design and innovation is driven by our work with these visionaries who push the boundaries of how crystal can be used as a creative ingredient.’
Hard Coded Memory by Troika (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
The 14 designers and their commissions:
The exhibition begins with a vertical installation by Random International leading you from the ground floor up towards the exhibition space. Their piece, Sunlight Video, shows a journey of light in a digital age. Light is directed through a Swarovski lens to project ephemeral images of film which echo an analogue projection.
Sound and motion create an immersive entrance to the exhibition, placing the viewer at the heart of natural crystal formation. The Shaping Grows, the site specific installation by Semiconductor, is an animation showing a mineral crystal growing and forming into another, changing colour and shape, at times moving frantically, at others slowly, leaving behind traces of previous growth.
At the central dais, the design duo Fredrikson Stallard revisits their seminal 2007 Pandora chandelier. This digitally programmed installation at first glance references classical chandelier aesthetics but with an added twist: the installation moves up and down, slowly exploding into chaos of light and crystal before reforming into its original shape.
Pandora chandelier by Fredrikson Stallard (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
Radiating from the central dais, design studio Troika’s Hard Coded Memory takes the photograph, the film and the note book as its starting point: a time when these were the only records of memory. In the past, photographs were shot, then selected with only the best printed and recorded as precious moments. The digital age has changed this. Today, the internet is our memory bank and the digital camera allows us to take endless images. Hard Coded Memory projects a photograph through a Swarovski lens to reproduce a blurred interpretation of an original photograph, a faded memory
An antechamber from the central dais shows 2012 RCA graduate Alvarez presents his Wrapping Crystal, a spinning machine that spins exquisite Swarovski yarn embedded with crystals around objects, wrapping and binding them forever keeping them safe and secure.
From this antechamber you reach another containing Paul Cocksedge’s Crystallize chandelier, originally commissioned in 2005, which uses a single crystal mounted on a tubular glass frame to channel a laser to create a unique ethereal effect. Rays of light cascade from each crystal in a trajectory of beams.
Paul Cocksedge – Crystallize (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
The third antechamber shows a redisplay of Arik Levy’s immersive Osmosis Film, which presents a moment of rapid prototyping. Capturing the transition of particles from one place to another, the film engages with the physical real world which is in constant transition.
The last room off the dais holds Philippe Malouin’s Blur which spins a Swarovski crystal at speed, extracting a prism of light to create a painting in a colourful spectrum. Influenced by the CERN Hadron Collider, the pictures are temporary and dependent on the speed of which the crystals are spun.
Ron Arad’s Lolita, designed for Swarovski Crystal Palace in 2004, was an early experiment in digital technology and has been completely redesigned for the exhibition so that the traditional mobile phone, as well as smart phone, can interact with the installation to allow it to receive Tweets and SMS text messages.
Ron Arad – Lolita (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
Former Designer in Residence at the Design Museum, Hye-Yeon Park has produced a ring of crystal that pushes the material to its limits in terms of size. Entitled Unfamiliar Mass this 30cm ring of crystal when cut open reveals a secret Polar Bear shaped crystal, an echo of a memory.
With The Monument, Swedish designer Hellström explores the notion of myth and narrative. For the exhibition, Hellström has created an object of crystal and Jesmonite which references the character of religious and mythical symbols. This object acts as the symbol of an ancient clan, a story that will be told through a short minute-long film. The film and the object will together tell the mythical tale of Wattens, Austria, the real home to Swarovski’s headquarters.
Artist and lighting designer Marcus Tremonto’s 3D Lenticular installation is a 3D holographic print which when viewed from different angles follows a sequence of events of a moving object. The hologram is similar to a photograph only more fragile and harder to maintain: non-tangible but real. Is this a precious moment in time or a future occurrence? This cutting edge technology allows memories to be captured as 3D memory as they would exist in reality.
Amplify Chandelier by Yves Béhar (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
Yves Béhar’s Amplify Chandelier, commissioned in 2010, takes a single crystal amplified within a paper lantern to create a digital pattern, a repeated form, each one different from the next.
Maarten Baas’ response to the brief was to celebrate that one remaining response which cannot be digitized: the human thought. His piece is a poetic interpretation of memory and thought. Displayed in a house with a chimney from which a thought cloud appears, the results are a digital imprint of the human mind.
About the Design Museum
Founded in 1989 the Design Museum is currently located in Shad Thames, South East London, its work encompasses all elements of design, including product design, architecture, graphic design, and fashion. The Design Museum plans to relocate from its current location to the former Commonwealth Institute building, in Kensington, West London. The project is expected to be completed by 2014. Leading designer John Pawson will convert the interior of the Commonwealth Institute building to create a new home for the Design Museum, giving it three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions, showcase its world class collection and extend its learning programme. Website: www.designmuseum.org
Wrapping crystal by Anton Alvarez (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
About Swarovski
The Swarovski story began in 1895 when Daniel Swarovski invented a machine for cutting and polishing crystal. This machine not only revolutionized jewellery manufacturing, it has inspired the worlds of art, design, fashion and cinema for over a hundred years. Today Swarovski is the world’s leading producer of precision-cut crystal and gemstones and operates nearly 2,000 retail outlets in over 120 countries. The company has a rich history of working with internationally acclaimed designers including Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior. Swarovski has built on this heritage by implementing a series of visionary design initiatives which have transformed the company’s image, turning crystal into a much desired component in the creative industries. Swarovski is committed to supporting and celebrating design and the arts by collaborating with both established and emerging designers - including Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Lacroix, Shaun Lean, Tom Dixon, John Pawson, Zaha Hadid, Mary Katrantzou, Marios Schwab, Erdem and Giles Deacon - challenging them to push the boundaries of crystal use across a fashion, jewellery, stage and screen, art, architecture and design. Website: www.brand.swarovski.com
Source: Design Museum
Unfamiliar Mass by Hye-Yeon Park (Photo courtesy of Swarovski)
DESIGN MUSEUM
SHAD THAMES, LONDON SE1 2YD
OPENING: 10.00 -17.45 daily. Last admission: 17.15
Admissions: £10.00 Adults, £9.00 Concessions, £6.00 Students, under 12s Free.
Public Information T: 020 7940 8790
Website: www.designmuseum.org
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