The Wonder Room at Selfridges department store in London is hosting an exhibition of new work by Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek.

The exhibition will feature new and recent work including the Floating Light Project and the results of his recent experiments with contact lens jewellery.

The Lucid Dream (shown here) is an illuminating hand-blown glass bubble which features an LED with an intended lifespan of 50,000 hours. Watch a video of the Lucid Dream project here.

The exhibition will continue until October.

The following is from Eric Klarenbeek:

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Lucid Dream

By combining Led-lights with the ability of glass to transmit light by internal
reflection, the light source disappears and the entire surface of the bubble
glows as a soap bubble. Capturing a moment in a flood of energy.

Handblown glass, led lights
Life expectancy: 50.000 hours
Power consumption: 6 Watts

At a glass atelier in Zaandam (Vrij Glas), I got the opportunity to experiment and study the behaviour of light through glass and to experience the fascinating material itself. By fusing new technology and crafts, possibilities which in former days seemed to be impossible can now be realized. As the world of durability grows, led-light becomes more and more bright and efficient as well as smaller in scale. Due to there extreme long life expectancy, the socket will become needless. This gives us new insights in light-design and the opportunity to implement light in our surrounding in a more natural and organic way. By combining LED’s with the internal reflection of glass, the object starts to behave more like a prism. Instead of absorbing the light, such as with traditional lamp-shades, Lucid Dream spreads it light by reflection, which makes it even more efficient.

Work Survey

Work Survey is a movie which describes the process and work method of Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek. Featured projects in this movie are; Lucid Dream (illuminating glass bubbles), The Floating Light Project, preparation of soap bubble solution and bubbles.

Director, Co-Director: Eric Klarenbeek, Efrem Stein.
Performers: Efrem Stein, Marta Navaridas, Annette Welling, Jonna Ollikainen
Filmed at the Hembrugterrein, Zaandam.

The Eye Jewellery Project

Intrigued by artificial objects that are always with us and almost becomes part of us.
Fusing the real and the unreal, blurring the transition between what we are and how we
optimise or improve our being.

Model: Kelly Peelen
Material: Contact lens, medical wire, crystals
Size: 14x33 mm
With thanks to: FCL lenses and Biosensors
Additional: Can be ordered in your preferred dioptre.
Year of concept: 2003
Product: 2008

A contact lens becomes jewellery, such as spectacles ever became a representation of our identity. Our fear for imperfectness makes us modify our surrounding and being, striving for virtual perfection. Not being someone we should be, but someone we could be. Aesthetics are more and more based on Photoshop’s capabilities and slightly becomes the norm for plastic surgery, instead of nature. Eye jewellery shows our scientific capabilities while showing the beauty of imperfection.

The Floating Light Project, featured in the 'Work-Survey' movie

A lamp heats its surrounding volume of air, to gain the ability of floating.

Out of my interest for blowing bubbles - obsessed by the weightless fragility and the influence of heat out of our lungs which can make a bubble float - I started experimenting with heating volumes out of lightweight materials. Experiencing that I could use lighting as an alternative heat source.

Searching a balance in weight, volume and light source, which led to the Floating Light Project; a quest for lighting with the ability of floating on its own heat.

This project started with the idea to show the inefficiency of ordinary lamps. Eventually people want to have them in their interior, wanting to spoil energy. This didn’t sound like a good idea to me, so from that moment I started developing energy-saving types. Not being able to float, but creating big volumes, as light diffusers. It’s part of the Moooi collection (www.moooi.com). Recently I developed a LED-light RGB color variable version.

The inscriptions on the lamp are technical specifications like weight, volume, diameter etc, showing its process and progress.