Shedding new light

Daniel Rybakken erases the boundary of place in his show, “The New Light”. Instead he creates a space of enhanced experience, using the simple, yet complex medium of light.

It’s the middle of winter in Oslo and the sky seems to hold a constant colour of cool blue, before the sun disappears in the early afternoon. At DogA, Norwegian designer Daniel Rybakken and his show, “Det Nye Lyset”, or “The New Light”, elegantly demonstrates his capability to create illusions of seasons and space through the use of carefully constructed light fixtures.

View of the exhibition “The New Light” devoted to the work of Daniel Rybakken at the DogA in Oslo. Photo Nasjonalmuseet and Annar Bjørgli

After graduating in 2008 with an MA from the School of Arts & Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden, Rybakken has participated in several exhibitions, both within the design and art field. This autumn he was awarded London Design Festival’s Emerging Talent award and the 29 year old has quickly made his name synonymous with innovative light constructions.

In his show, where he is co-credited as curator, we are presented with work both existing within the classical idea of a lamp, but also sculptural pieces, where he borrows tools from the art field. Daylight Entrance (2010) and Surface Daylight (2010) are two examples that plays with the transcension between exterior and interior lighting, finding itself situated in a space in-between fine art installation and design light fixtures. Through interaction the viewer, and/or, user, is sometimes the key to unlocking the intention behind Rybakken’s work. If we weren’t there to experience the way modest use of light can stir memories, it would only be a wall. If we weren’t there to move parts a lamp and understand the counterbalance it creates, it would only be metal tubes. The exhibition looks to illusions created from light and examines how the medium can influence our experience of room and place, as well as serve as an enhancement of experience.

“The New Light” demonstrates a skilled craftsman, successfully pushing his favoured medium to bend to his vision. Rybakken’s work holds a distinctive quality in its capability to exist outside of the formative boundaries of the object – it taps into the viewer’s memories and emotions, and at times sits in a state of both physical and mental space. However, there seem to subsist a clear rational and pragmatic starting point that manages to communicate through most of the objects. The work speaks of an intimate knowledge of the medium while communicating in a both mature and critical way. In the creation of light illusions he is not so much leaning on the idea of light as a source, but more as an all-encompassing feeling and way of portraying and perceiving space. The larger format work in the show moves beyond the constriction of form and transcends into experience. At its very best the works are signifiers and talks of designs potential to communicate outside the boundary of an object. It takes us into unknown, but welcomed territory, both for the field and the spectator.

Apart from the sculptural and installation pieces, some of Rybakken’s more traditional work is also on show. The Colour Light (2011) sculpture-come-lamp, made together with another Norwegian designer, Andreas Engesvik, shows the marking of two talents who have used the best from both of their worlds. Its mixture of shapes and hues invites the user to understand and play with light as colour in ways reminiscent of Josef Albers’ intriguing experiments. However, the vision, which makes Rybakken a maker who has an ability to tell us of what lies outside of the ordinary, seems to fade in Light Tray (2011), another collaboration with Engesvik. It seems almost too familiar within Nordic lighting design, with its coloured glass and rounded lantern forms. The work where Rybakken attempts to reach beyond an object is a much more evocative idea; made up of how room can be enhanced, at time intensified, as well as how it can alter our understanding of space.

Rybakken is not only a young designer who is expanding the field of design, but also evoking the age-old question: what can come from a transmission of the fields of art and design? In the same way that he removes the boundaries between in- and outside in his work, the definition of what field he belongs to follows suit – he transcends it. Grounded in design, the discourse concerns intention and relation to the audience, instead of that of a label. “The New Light” proves how the design field today is more interested in understanding the mediums it holds at its disposal and morphing them into a form that displays intention, instead of trying to live up to – or defy – the genres expectations.

The title “The New Light” is perhaps not so much about being new, as enhancing our idea of what light can do, and in this way, what design can, as well.

Daniel Rybakken Studio. Photo Kalle Sanner and Daniel Rybakken

Until 2 February 2014
The New Light. Daniel Rybakken
DogA - Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture

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