The Japanese motor car manufacturer Lexus – well-known at international level for its luxury models – took part in the “Salone del mobile” Exhibition, and the attached Design Week of Milan, for the third year in succession. A perfect combination of tradition and the avant-garde, this important Milanese event was considered by Lexus as the ideal framework for presenting its concept of design, applied to the world of the motor car.
This year Lexus has chosen to collaborate with an up-and-coming artist, the architect Kumiko Inui, who worked on the novel idea of readapting a common space in a totally unusual way, creating an atmosphere that integrates known and unknown, future and tension to the infinite.
The ambience has been rebuilt inside a Milanese car workshop located in the Tortona Zone, an area that has by now been consecrated to host all the most trendy out-of-salon fair events in the world. The workshop was rented and dismantled piece by piece, to obtain an unusual contrast between “ordinary” space (the roofing, which remains as it actually is) and an “extraordinary” space (the lower part and the courtyard in front of the workshop) that is filled with leaves shining with silver.
Entering the courtyard we discover a silvered silhouette appearing on the horizon: it is the Lexus flagship model, the LS 600h. The light, first from the sun and then artificial, reflects in a diffused way on the carpet of silvery leaves and then on the car, creating an enfolding sensory experience.
The lighting system
Such a refined design concept with so much care taken over details could certainly not ignore the lighting technology aspect. Lighting Designer Mr. Kuramoto chose, with the precious technical and logistical support of Light Video Sound, the most suitable light products for the purpose: 15 Alpha Spot HPE 1200, the top quality effects projectors from Clay Paky.
“The customer’s need for the best product available was obvious from the very start and I had no hesitation in proposing the HPE 1200 from Clay Paky – Eliano Girola, the owner of Light Video Sound told us.
Light Video Sound thus took care of the supply and installation of the projectors, while LD Kuramoto prepared about a dozen light programmes that alternated according to a sequence studied for the whole duration of the exhibition.
The night-time results were obviously particularly suggestive, where the projectors impacted on the car and the surrounding atmosphere with colour changes tending to blue and using the dichroics contained in the Alpha Spot HPE 1200.
Light Video Sound After having gained years of experience as a technician in a company specialising in producing systems for hotels, Eliano Girola decided to found Light Video Sound in 1983. Light Video Sound’s first approach to system design regarded solely the installation of light and audio systems. And, indeed, with the passage of time and the exponential increase of the problems relative to the public show sector the Staff of the company, no longer in its primitive embryonic stage, began to be supported by the precious consultancy of experts from the Regulatory sector, a consultancy that changed the relationship of Light Video Sound with the installation world: a relationship no longer merely practical but also theoretical-regulatory. The great advantage of this partnership lies in guaranteeing exclusive, secure consultancy to the customer that leaves no space for the by now sadly famous losses of time deriving from misunderstandings between the various interlocutors. There are many references that Light Video Sound can quote, including ones at international level. Light Video Sound’s approach to the job is unique and exclusive for each Customer. Indeed, the company boasts the presence of ten technicians, each one specialising in a different sector, which allows the problem to be initially faced by means of an expert analysis and subsequently by team consultancy. Light Video Sound can currently boast continuous collaboration with some of the most important manufacturers of projectors for shows, studios specialising in acoustics and soundproofing and studios dealing with architectural lighting technology, with great satisfaction.