Lighting in Design Q2 2021

Ed Space

T he pandemic has had numerous knock-on effects for every industry, and the lighting industry hasn’t escaped. Many people took to Zoom to connect and interact with family and friends around the world, or as a way to continue with business meetings, albeit virtually. ETC, a UK-based manufacturer of lighting and rigging technology, took to Zoom to start an event named Light Bytes. In essence, Light Bytes takes place on the first Friday of every month (at 16:30 BST/17:30 CEST) and is a series of informal chats about light and lighting which help to promote open communication and networking in the lighting and associated industries. Hosted from the ETC office in London and streamed worldwide, each month it presents a new and exciting topic featuring news about its latest products and current industry trends. What makes this series fascinating, is that ETC is joined each month by a panel of different industry professionals from around the world, from opinion panels, to spotlights on companies or specific work, to roundtables, all offering the opportunity for those watching to engage with the panel in the question and answer sessions. South Africa’s own Paul Pamboukian of Pamboukian lightdesign was a recent guest where he took part in a discussion between four lighting designers who had started out in the theatre and moved over to architectural lighting design. As independent and product-neutral designers who work with the medium of light, Pamboukian lightdesign’s collaboration with architects, designers and developers from concept to completion, ensure this. The company is made up of designers from backgrounds in architecture, interior design, music and theatre led by Paul Pamboukian who has over 30 years’ experience working with light. Paul was Chief Lighting Designer at the State Theatre in Pretoria and respon- sible for the lighting of many opera, ballet and drama productions. He went on to co-establish Production Projects for product launches, show staging, lighting design, distribution of theatre lighting and control systems. Paul has lit shows in Basel, Berlin, Cape Town, Hawaii, Johannesburg, NewYork, Pretoria, Paris and Venice. He has worked on more than 500 industrial theatre productions for an international clientele. In 1990 he established Pamboukian lightdesign. The next session of Light Bytes, on Friday 4 th of June (just before this issue will reach you unfortunately), is titled Creative Collaborations – Projection and Lighting Design. Projection is no longer out of reach for most productions. The technology has improved dramatically making projectors that are smaller, brighter and more affordable and we are seeing these more and more in shows today. Software for content creation and media playback is more easily accessible, pow- erful and affordable.These factors, coupled with our desire to create productions that are more visually stunning mean that it is not uncommon for shows to have both a lighting designer and a projection designer as part of the creative team. Whether you work in live entertainment, broadcast, film, architecture, or whether you are just passionate about light and lighting, then Light Bytes will be of interest to you. Visit www.etcconnect.com/Support/Training-Events/LTD/ Light-Bytes.aspx or search ‘Light Bytes’ on YouTube to catch up on all the past discussions.

Editor: Gregg Cocking (lighting@crown.co.za) • Advertising manager: Carin Hannay (carinh@crown.co.za) Layout: Katlego Montsho • Circulation: Karen Smith Cover: Bosjes Cafe by David Southwood Published by Crown Publications (Pty) Ltd PO Box 140, Bedfordview, 2008 - Tel: +27 (0)11 622 4770 Fax: +27 (0)11 615 6108 - Website: www.crown.co.za ABC 2020: 4 242• Printed by: Tandym Print All issues of Lighting in Design can be viewed on our website. Visit www.lightingindesignmagazine.co.za

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LiD Q2 - 2021