STUDIO GLITHERO
LOST TIME FOR PERRIER - JOUET
DESIGN MIAMI 2012
LOST TIME BY GLITHERO STUDIO FOR PERRIER - JOUET
Design Miami: inspired by Gaudí's ingenious method to create the
perfect curve, Anglo-Dutch design duo Glithero have hung loops of beaded chain
over a shallow pool of water in an installation for champagne house
Perrier-Jouët.
Founded by British designer Tim Simpson and Dutch designer
Sarah van Gameren, London-based studio Glithero was asked by Perrier-Jouët to come
up with a piece to reflect the champagne house's art nouveau history.
Lost Time is installed in a darkened room inside the Design Miami fair,
stretching along a narrow corridor with a pool of water right beneath it.
The elongated domes are reflected in the water below,
hinting at the bubbles of a champagne glass.
"We knew the affinity of Perrier-Jouët with art
nouveau," said van Gameren, explaining that they made the link with
Gaudí's architectural model for the art nouveau-influenced Sagrada Familia
cathedral in Barcelona.
"It was an upside-down model, and it was completely
made of strings and little bags of sand to keep the string nicely poised,"
continued van Gameren. "He mirrored it with a mirror underneath and used
it as the basis for the structural fundaments of the Sagrada Familia.
"That's a really interesting thing – it's also almost
like a tool that creates curves, and in this time, in this day and age, you
probably have a computer to fill this function. What's really charming of
course, is that he managed to do it so analogue," she added.
The designers also wanted to recreate the environment of the
cellars in Epernay, France, where the champagne is made. "There is a
really strange atmosphere in there because it's a bit humid, moist, and the
walls are all chalky because that's where the grapes grow and all the bottles
are stored there," van Gameren explained at the opening of the installation.
"We wanted to almost capture the timelessness that we
had the impression there was in these vaults, or in these caves, and the
reflections – because there were puddles on the floor and they reflected the
ceiling, and spiderwebs with little dew drops. And it was almost like we wanted
to take a little bottle and bring it here in Miami," she added.
Emilie Chalcraft: So what
about the idea that art nouveau was an era where craft and process were quite
important, did you think about those things as well?
Sarah van Gameren: I guess
that is something that is very fitting in our studio mentality in general, you
know? Our processes are, or our projects are very much about process, and about
experimentation and about pushing to the borders of science. Our Blueprint
project is a really good example of where, on the one hand, nature is really in
play, and on the other hand it really pushes things that in the art nouveau era
were also pushed, like glazes and so on. This case is really about exposure
through UV light.
Tim Simpson: But
there is also really a tangent there with our work and the work of the art
nouveau, because in some ways we're completely opposite. Because with the
artists of the art nouveau, you really see that they wanted to make an
interpretation of natural forms in a way that you're very aware of the maker
leaving their mark, and that's actually quite opposite to our approach. We are
somehow, you could say we're a little bit hands-off, or we are often trying to
sort of create distance between our hands and the things that we make.
Sarah van Gameren: And on
the other hand, I find also that it has a more direct link to nature, because
we use the direct specimen of the vases, but also in this work very much we
show almost a sort of natural phenomenon of reflection and symmetry.
Emilie Chalcraft: Did the
idea for the installation form itself quite quickly?
Sarah van Gameren: Yeah,
it goes sort of back and forth and sometimes, because there are always so many
ingredients in our work, every project has more layers than one – technical,
but also conceptual.
Emilie Chalcraft: But
compared to some of your other projects this one is really simple, there is
less science, chemical reactions and all that kind of thing.
Tim Simpson: But
what it did have though is some learning through experimentation and really
practicing, and we were building a lot of mock-ups. Maybe in principle it's simple,
but actually how the light works is something that took a long time to develop.
Because when you enter the space the light source is completely invisible, it's
only when you lean over – and there is a good reason for that, because if you
do see any of the light itself your pupil dilates and it adjusts to – or
closes, sorry – the reflection. If you try it actually, you can put a camera
over and the camera works the same way and you can't actually photograph the
reflection.
Sarah van Gameren: Certain
angles are much more effective, like if you go lower to the water surface you
get much more effective angles, so we had to make it quite long. All these kind
of things, it's like, the usual materials we work with, like the plaster, has
been replaced with immaterial materials like light, and there's water of
course. It's completely different palette to use. But in a way we do the same
thing again – it's still about tweaking materials and trying to make them all
come together in a particular moment in the most perfect way, but hands off.
Emilie Chalcraft: And the
light is supposed to recreate the cellars and the darkness of the cellars in
Epernay. There are plans to actually install Lost Time in the Perrier-Jouët
cellars, right?
Tim Simpson: Yeah,
well it's naturally a very damp environment. Actually, this whole idea of
reflection came from that experience of seeing the still puddles in the
cellars, so it is there because the walls are chalk and they have moisture that
is there. We've been before to do photo shoots to sort of put a focus on the
things that inspired us, and we've already actually flooded the cellars, a
really good day where we were taking gallons of water. I was really surprised
they let us do it but they did, they let us really flood it, and we were taking
these kind of completely mirrored images which were actually quite constructed,
in a really fun way, but they were constructed. So those puddles are there, and
I think we can actually go even further in the cellars because there is the
length, and we had to do the length because it's caves, it's sort of corridors
almost, and we know we can flood it. I think it's really at home there, I think
it would be really nice.
Emilie Chalcraft: So it
could get extended to be even longer?
Tim Simpson: Yeah exactly,
yeah.
Emilie Chalcraft: You
were saying about process being important to your work. Slow design is quite a
buzzword these days, and the idea of looking into craft and process more. Is
that something you are interested in or align yourself with at all?
Sarah van Gameren: We're
not against production for royalties at all. At this moment our journey, or our
path, was different somehow, but we can also really imagine treating industrial
production in a very similar way to how we create our installations right now.
It's a different thing that holds things together with us. Like, the conceptual
backbone has more to do with things like the transformation and the moment of
the creation of something. And also, how you shift from an end product to the
moment that you create something because it might have more value, and in a way
this immaterial approach is also one of these, it's a solution to that
hypothesis in a way, you know?
Emilie Chalcraft: A lot
of designers are now interested in designing experiences rather than objects,
and this seems to be very much an experience rather than a tangible thing. Is
it something you would want to do again?
Tim Simpson: Yeah
we're really at home in experiences. We like the idea of the timeline, or the
idea that you can deliver something in a very controlled way or be the author
of how you deliver an experience. So yeah, that's maybe not such a tangible
concept with something static, but actually there are ways that that is present
in our work. So for instance, if you take one of the Blueware vases, there are
cues that we leave behind that explain how that thing came into being, or cues
like little pieces of tape.
Emilie Chalcraft: I
noticed that, I wondered why you kept those leftover marks from the sticky tape
on the vases.
Tim Simpson: Yeah,
we choose to sort of describe – it's not something you see immediately but
there is the hope, in how you interact with it, that there is a level of
understanding that reveals itself. You can also do that in experiences, in
spaces, you can be in control of timing. We have been talking about how there
was this great moment when we hung the work, there was a moment when we filled
it with water and everybody came in and sat there and saw the work just kind of
appear as a drizzle that got bigger and bigger.
I realised afterwards that sort of genesis of the work, and
it is there now, you can as a visitor disturb the water, and people have been
doing that and it means that someone comes in and they encounter the thing
maybe appearing or maybe disappearing, and in that respect it really works.
Although, it would have been really cool to have just a drainage hole in the
middle and have the thing constantly kind of drain and fill, or something that
was disturbing the surface, because then you become really aware of its
fragility.
Sarah van Gameren: That
might be something for the next project, you know? Our projects tend to evolve,
and it's not like a one off, we in no way want to make one installational
statement and then not do anything with that anymore. The next step would be to
show this in a different scale and a different context, and yeah, maybe think
of a product for example, things to keep going.
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STUDIO GLITHERO
Glithero are
British designer Tim Simpson and Dutch designer Sarah van Gameren, who met and
studied at the Royal College of Art. From their studio in London they create
product, furniture, and time-based installations that give birth to unique and
wonderful products. The work is presented in a broad spectrum of media, but
follows a consistent conceptual path; to capture and present the beauty in the
moment things are made.
From machines
that miraculously create wax chandeliers from strung wick, a pouring slide that
becomes a 10 metre long poly-concrete table, to ceramics that turn vivid blue
with UV light, the key ingredients of their work are time and transformation.
With their own concoction of creation-performance they aim to bridge creative
disciplines and make works that can be understood by all.
In the past
year Glithero has presented solo shows in London, Paris and Rotterdam, as well
as exhibitions in Milan, Berlin and Basel. and in 2011 the studio has been
shortlisted for the Brit Insurance Award and the Dutch Design Awards.
Portrait
by André Penteado
http://www.glithero.com/about
