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At the Dutch Design Week 2015 I bought a Dandelight light made by Studio Drift, a Dutch design studio. Dandelight is a little light made from a real dandelion, which is powered by a 9V battery:

The Dandelight is based on the utopian vision of the amalgamation between nature and technology, a recurring topic in the works of Studio Drift. Actual dandelion seeds are attached one by one to a LED by them, creating a light-emitting dandelion growing out of it’s energy source: the battery. As such, each product is handmade and numbered: I have number 4378. Contemporary “Dutch design” has always explored the borders between art pieces and product design, but is this art or design? For me, it’s definitely an art piece in the “tech art” category. It is an unique art piece, but produced in series and therefore affordable. Maybe it is “design art”.  In this video the “luminous dandelion” concept is taken one step further in their sculpture “Fragile Future III“. It also describes the making process of these kind of design art works with natural artifacts, such as flower seeds:

Studio Drift won a Dutch Design Award with another stunning piece of “design art”,  also on show at the Dutch Design Week 2015 last week and again focusing on the topic of “light sculpture” and flowers: “Shylight“, to be seen (or better: experienced) in a permanent installation of five Shylights at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, NL:

This video by Studio Drift describes the making of Skylight and some of the concepts behind it

So is the work of Studio Drift art or product design? To me it is both: their work displayed during the Dutch Design Week 2015 can also be included in the upcoming GLOW light art festival. So definitely artists/designers to follow if you are interested in these kind of hybrid nature/technology objects, like I am.

More information:

• Studio Drift
• Dutch Design Week
• Dutch Design Awards
• Studio Drift installs moving Shylights in disused Eindhoven building news article in DeZeen
• GLOW 2015
• Rijksmuseum