The week that was…20th-24th July

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The week that was…20th-24th July

Singapore weekend 25-26^th July 2015

Monday 20^th July, Singapore – Quantum dot lighting technology
As I prepare myself for a busy travelling week ahead (luckily my daytrip to KL today got postponed to a later date as the contractor is not ready), I read up on a new (potential lighting) technology, where quantum dot technology is used to create a hyper efficient light emitting crystal. Ever heard about it? It sounds very Einstein-ish and by the looks of it, it probably is. Let me quote part of the report so you may understand what this is about…”By mixing two optoelectronic materials called Perovskite and Quantum Dots which individually have been used by researchers to boost sunlight conversion to electrical current in solar cells and to increase the efficacy of electrically generated light, engineers at the University of Toronto have managed to combine both these materials to create an ultra-efficient, super luminescent hybrid crystal that will enable new records in power to light conversion efficiencies.” At this point the light is produced near the infra-red end of the spectrum which the researchers believe could form the basis for a new family highly energy efficient near infra-red LED’s, which could improve night vision technology, but also biomedical imaging and high-speed telecommunication. It seems that (like with blue LED’s) this may become another breakthrough towards highly efficient, near zero energy lighting technology. Parallel to this the further development of highly efficient solar energy conversion technology which is taking place bodes well for the future. We seem not far away of light sources that soon can generate their own power supply from sun and or daylight! It is without doubt that lighting and the lighting technologies that drives our lighting design profession keeps pushing the boundaries, year after year…there is always some “excitement” in the air!

Tuesday 21^st July, Bandung – Patience with a smile…
Some clients will never get it and my trip to Bandung today feels like a charity trip as I know that although my client is full of goodwill he will never get it. He is from “small town” Indonesia (absolutely no disrespect meant) and even though he is very well travelled with kids studying in the US, his mind set and attitude to developing this project are still very local. Yet he wishes to develop a 5 star world class hotel. The problem is that you need an international approach and attitude to this certainly if you wish to represent an internationally acclaimed operator that prouds itself on its brand standards. My task in this project is to lead him by the hand, no he did not want full lighting design consultancy…too expensive, so I review drawings, mark up plans, review site progress and let him know how to move forward. The thing is that when I explain and direct him he is all good and understanding, but as soon as I leave his local “mind” takes over and he makes decisions on his own understanding and appreciation of what value for money is. Not surprisingly most external consultants initially appointed have left tearing their hairs out in despair, but I have decided to hang in their and as long as he pays my fees and expenses I am fine. When he called me that I could come now to commission the dimming system I did ask him if everything was now working fine…yes, everything works, you can come test, program and commission now! Again not surprisingly when we did our rounds on site today it was (very) far from being “ready”. Wrong circuit connections, emergency lighting connected inside the dimmer, some critical circuits not connected at all (with on-off via the circuit breaker in the main electrical switch board!), no control panels to actually pre-set scenes…Anyhow we worked patiently through all control circuits, explained to the contractor what he needed to do, explained to our client what still needed to be done…we will get their eventually as the property location is breath taking…patience with a smile!

Wednesday 22^nd July, Bandung – Singapore – Visa mess…
For those travelling to Indonesia on a regular basis like me and need a visa-on-arrival the whole experience has just become even more messy. Since 1-2 months those coming in for a social visit or tourism do not need a visa anymore and are granted a 30 day free visa exemption. It is not difficult to see that this extremely difficult to police. So on arrival in Bandung yesterday I tried the social visit approach (note that every visa costs USD 35!) only to find that the visa exemption does not apply to all airports! Oh, right, why? I probed the officer upon which he produced an A4 sheet with an internal memo listing a number of airports (I saw 4 listed) in Indonesia for which the visa on arrival remains in force. OK so I went back to the VOA desk, forked out the money for the visa and re-joined the queue! Grrrrr! The irony is that the next day (see below) I went to Jakarta for another meeting and tried it again as on arrival there was a big sign showing that I did not a need a visa. This time the officer looked at me and said…noooo, you are here for business. So I replied, how would you know? I maintained my social visit approach to test the system. He looked at my passport full off VOA stickers and kept saying I had to go get my VOA for business. I did not budge and told him as he could see from my passport I indeed by a VOA when I come for business, but today I was here on a social visit and he was holding up the queue with his hard headedness. He then went to his supervisor who saw the ridiculousness of our argument and came back and stamped my passport as below…it says tourism purpose only! I did not really lie…I went “site” seeing. 🙂

Thursday 23^rd July, Jakarta – Visiting TV Studio’s
So I did come into Jakarta on a social visit visa exemption so I just went to meet some “friends” and visited the site. In fact as part of this project we were invited to have a look behind the screens at Indonesia’s biggest TV studios from MNC TV, Global TV and IRTC. Our client is familiar with TV studio set ups but has never done a TV Studio approach inside a theatre performance setting, so as part of our “reconnaissance” we visited the various studios to get an idea what they were really familiar with. Amongst others we visited the X-Factor Indonesia set in its final testing before the first show, The Master Chef Indonesia set that was being bumped in and a TV Chat show set from Global TV. As always the reality is very different from what you see on TV as the recording angles are such that all is neat and focussed; you only see what you need to see. We saw all the peripheral areas that have no presence in any show as it really is back of house. But more interesting to us were the control rooms from where the lighting is being controlled, the lighting equipment that is being used and the infra-structure that supports it and that is what we came for! An educational (social) visit!

Friday 24^th July, Singapore – Getting ready
Today is physically my last day in the office for a while. In the coming week I am travelling for work and then go on for my long planned one month break in France. That meant catching up with the team to discuss project issues and getting ready for our presentations next week. We have to major kick off meetings for which we have prepared many rende rings and want to present ourselves to the (new) team to our best possible. I always think that first impressions are important and this specifically counts when you start a new project where you join a team already on the “run”, a team with whom you have never worked before. You know how people look at “new comers”…ok let us see what you’ve got, let us see why the client selected you as the lighting designer for this project. Hence we created extra renderings, smoothed the presentation, printed and bound the presentation together as a neat hand out. In the coming week I will still keep up my blog from my various location, but by the time I will be uploading my adventures I will be high and dry in Europe. Have a great weekend.!