Interactive Experiments In Indoor Illumination

Pinch me! demo (above)

Ji Young Shon comes from a background of various disciplines, with experience spanning physics and electrical engineering as well as advertising and marketing. Her playful experiments with ordinary indoor lamp lighting reflect her ever-curious nature, and contain a thread of childlike simplicity.

In her Pinch me!/Crack me!/Tear me! series, Shon experiments with the way the glow from a light bulb can be filtered through various physical surfaces. By stretching elastic fabric over a square frame, she created an interactive lampshade structure that responds to being physically pinched and pulled. By pinching the rubber surface, the light glows brighter, and dims as you let go. Crack me! is an outlet for the destructive side in which light moves through shattered plaster. In Tear me!, the filter medium is more than 20 layers of Japanese washi paper slitted and then peeled open to let the light shine through.

Shadow of Time presents a clever way of expressing time with light. Small light sources are attached to the ends of the hour and minute hands of a clock, so that the two lights reflected on the wall show the time.

In Shon’s work, the concept of interactivity doesn’t rely on screens or complex electronics, but on simplicity and tactile engagement. And what better method for engagement than pinching, cracking and tearing?

Crack me!

Tear me!

Shadow of Time