Lighting Design Forum Singapore
Singapore, 25th November 2014
Maybe it’s just me but I have the impressions that lighting events are happening more and more these days. I just have to look at my own involvement over the past year where I was invited as speaker at least once a month from Copenhagen (PLDC 2013) to Las Vegas (Light Fair 2014) via Qatar, Singapore, India, China and Hong Kong just 2 weeks ago. With one more event to go this year (I had to decline two other invitations in December!) I have already 3 speaking engagements lined up for 2015! It is not that I don’t like it, on the contrary I do relish the opportunity to share my (practical) experience. But I am not one to ego trip on my own projects, I don’t see the point of that, I derive far more pleasure in actually sharing my experience (the good and the bad and how we overcame the difficult lighting challenges) with my audience. The response over the years has been enormously gratifying as many people, designers alike, find themselves back with similar challenges in their projects. If only one person comes up to me after a presentation to let me know they enjoyed it and learned something, I at least feel it was worth it and I have given something back from my life as a lighting designer.
The problem that we face as speakers is to remain actual and relevant as there is a big risk of repeat when we are asked to do similar presentations over and over again. I have done my LED Cowboys presentation several times now but every time I have to update and reconfigure the story to fit the actual audience and remain relevant. Yes there is an economy of scale by writing one presentation and repeating it a few times for different audiences, but then it really must be good and entertaining. Most of all it has to be (in my opinion) educational so that the audience goes away from the event with the feeling their invested time was not wasted…they learned something and took something away that they can use in their own practice or own life. Unfortunately many presenters, regardless their experience and standing, present badly and loose themselves in ego tripping, after which you leave wondering what it was all about…
Light Watch 5-200: Today’s presentations gave people a good insight in how lighting is achieved in historical places. Below are some impressions from today’s lighting design forum at the National Design Centre in Singapore. Speakers Louis and Emanuel Clair as well as Serena Tellini and Francesco Iannone enlightened the guests to their experiences in lighting historic art and monuments. The Clairs reviewed their presentation about the Mont St. Michel in France together with some other historic projects in France (Notre Dame) and the Middle East and Serena and Francesco reprised their PLDC presentation about how to illuminate historical and artistic spaces, as always highly entertaining and educational. This inaugural event is likely to be repeated next year.
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