Friday, April 14, 2006

SAD in Seattle - Fabric Lights

I am not sure if having fabric automatically light up in response to environmental changes will help me with my battle against Seasonal Affective Disorder. In the interest of science and my own well-being, I'm willing to try it.

An innovative European company developed a technique, which, according to Wired Magazine, features "light display[s] of floral designs whose patterns and movement are animated by changes in barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed". Sounds like a study in Chaos/Complexity iteration for the home environment!

Heading to the company's own website, I thought of those glowing stars I used to stick on my bedroom ceiling. The lighted swirls look like photo-reactive phosphorus cells simply embedded in textiles, but what do I know? Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl of Loop.pH present their gracefully looped techniques as new art forms; you can see their admittedly lovely designs in person at Amsterdam's agressively innovative, think-tankoid Droog Design Gallery.

Loop.pH's stated aim is, "to provide a more intuitive understanding of our natural environment, from day-night cycles to power consumption."

Can this help sufferers of SAD? Maybe. They can arrange for blankets, pillows and curtains to emit gradually stronger rays of blue light, like a unique sort of dawn-simulator. The bedding is created with SAD-sufferers in mind, concludes CNN.com in their interview with London co-developer Rachel Wingfield.

Loop.pH's "Light Sleeper" is very pretty, albeit surprisingly icy in tone. I suspect I'd wake wondering why the heck I slept in an ice cave, but it would probably help combat the effects of SAD, after all.

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