SWARM light
By Itay Galim (ETgalim) Care and guidance: Aldo Bakker
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A behaviour of an aggregate of animals of similar size and body orientation, often moving in mass in the same direction
Inspiration
The SWARM light Project started with my own personal admiration to the swarm phenomena. I was always amazed by how accurate the movement of 30,000 birds can be, each with a mind of it’s own, but all together as one. I wasn’t interested in the science behind the swarm intelligent, I was fascinated by the amazing shapes created by this fluid movement of many-of-thesame. The Swam light is made of some 1500 similar paper modules and tries to mimic the movement of the natural swarm by allowing the user to control the shape of the light fixture. A lot of attention was put into the light itself. I wanted to use the edge of the paper to disperse light unevenly across the whole object and allow darker and lighter areas to create a more 3 dimensional shapes as the object transforms.
Process
Early models
Shape change and hanging method for early paper model
Plastic (STL) modules try out... (mmm... NO!)
In many aspects, returning to this concept was returning to the starting line. This object was first made back in my first year of design studies (and again here at the DAE) as a “Foldable” object. It demonstrates my ideal view of movement. It is made of stiff cardboard modules but when weaved together acts almost like a piece of fabric. It was said to “behave differently then it feels” and in so many aspects that was the feeling I was looking for in my SWARM light.
Final paper module and LED module Each module is hand crumpled, folded and glued
Manufacturing process AKA “the sweatshop”
Folding and soldering JIG
First small model weaving
Final weaving and weaving JIG
1500 paper modules 3000 metal hooks 4500 plastic beads 50 LED modules 35 hours of folding 10 hours of weaving One ETgalim (that’s me) One Aldo Bakker (thank you) One Design Academy Eindhoven Lot’s of fun Thank you for your time
ETgalimDESIGN
www.etgalim.com