The First Rule of Light Club

Earlier this year, Martin Lupton, Katia Kolovea and Annukka Larsen launched Light Club: a virtual meeting place for the lighting community on newly launched social media platform, Clubhouse. Here, they explain the rules of Light Club.

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lubhouse is an audio-only social media platform that is intended to be primarily accessed via your smartphone or tablet. It launched on iPhone and recently became available on Android and, although it was “exclusive” and invite-only when it started, there now seems to be plenty of invitations available to anyone who wants them. Within the Clubhouse environment there are “rooms” that are created for the discussion of all topics imaginable - from Architecture to Social Media tips to Bitcoins and NFT’s. About six months ago Annukka Larsen of WSP Finland, Katia Kolovea of Archifos and Martin Lupton of Light Collective began hosting Light Club - a one-hour open session held every Wednesday at 2.30pm UK time, for people to get together and talk about light. Designed to be a place to share your passion for light, lighting design, light and architecture, light and art, light and everything, the aim of Light Club is to get inspired, provide some value, some knowledge, create opportunities for new connections and, most importantly, have some fun discussing light during the one hour the audience spends in Light Club. Everyone is welcome in Light Club - manufacturers, designers, architects, artists, product designers, people from live events or theatre, basically anyone who has a passion for light is welcome. We always welcome people who are not in the lighting industry and found our online room by luck and we empower them to connect with each other and learn more about the medium that we are all so passionate about. The Light Club Programme moves between Interviews, Networking, and Inspiration based sessions. At the time of writing, Light Club had completed eight Interviews, seven Networking sessions, and seven Inspiration sessions with audiences ranging between 3050 people each time, joining and contributing from all over the world including Mexico, USA, India, the Middle East and Europe. Some of the most popular sessions are the interviews, which always give the audience a chance to come on stage and ask their own questions. Interviews so far have included professionals based around the world with some fantastic insights into their specific niches and worlds of lighting and their associated professions. The interview series started with the Belgium-based lighting designer, Koert Vermeulen, Principal of ACTLD, followed by UKbased architect Jason Boyle, who has the fascinating role of Nuclear Architect at Sellafield. In contrast, for the third interview, the Greek-based Architectural Visualisation Artist, Nikos Nikolopoulos, Creative Director and Educator at creativelighting.co gave us some insights into his approach to lighting as a key element of his narrative approach to visualisation. Insights from one of the leading voices on light and health, the Researcher and Designer, Dr. Shelley James, founder at Age of Light Innovations Group was next. The whole list of interviewees includes Isabel Villar, Senior Lighting Designer at White Arkitekter; Matt Waring, the Editor of arc magazine, Tom Acciarini, maker, manufacturer,

master blacksmith and design/fabrication consultant at Iberian Lighting; US-based, Lighting Designer, Regina Lausell, the CEO of Light Vitality Group and theatre lighting designer, entrepreneur and XR specialist James Simpson. The inspiration focused Light Club rooms take a closer look at where we find our inspirations and invite all participants to contribute to the discussions. The end of these rooms usually finish in a “listicle” - a combined article and list that collates all of the contributions to the discussion for future reference. Some of the topics covered so far are films, events, light-art and lighting books. The light and film discussion was particularly engaging and popular, which led to a more focused session, again joined by Nikos Nikolopoulos and discussed the light and storytelling of the 2014 film Birdman. Birdman won the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography from a total of nine nominations and made a fascinating subject for analysis in lighting terms. The networking sessions are intended to be the most inclusive and encourage people to connect on the app and follow each other. Everyone is invited to come on stage, introduce themselves and share their knowledge on a specific subject that has been established as the main topic of the room. These sessions have included the Light and Cities edition, where the participants virtually traveled around the world by describing their memories and experiences of their favorite places. These included Copenhagen, Tokyo, San Francisco, New York City, Paris, Stockholm, Florence, Montreal, Porto, Dubai, Berlin, Rome, Las Vegas, Lyon, St Petersburg, Kyoto and London. One of the most lively and fun sessions was the Light Songs session, where people shared their favourite light related music and it was played live into the room. One of the latest topics was the resources and favorite tools that designers use to get inspired and improve their productivity. This also led to a curated list of a selection of interesting resources, applications and software. One very interesting contribution to this discussion came from Suma Khandige, a lighting designer based in India, who took us back to basics with four words. On the question, what are your favorite resources and tools, she said: “My pencil and notebook”. Technology is fantastic and we should definitely discover new applications and software to make our productivity and workflow better, however, we must always remember that every idea starts from us and not the tools that we are using. Clubhouse is another tool in the vast array of social media that we can use to expand our knowledge, share our passion and promote light. By being audio only it seems to have a slower pace that creates great opportunities to share ideas with each other and collaborate in an open and thoughtful way. Hopefully reading this will inspire you to join Light Club, participate in a session, suggest a topic or nominate someone for an interview session.