Starting from the conceptual diagram of the streetlamp as the combination of a vertical shaft and horizontal light-emitting beam, and looking at birds and flowers for reference, Tagliente was developed as a sculpted facetted transition between the vertical and horizontal directions. Challenging the omnipresent and generic status of street lamps, this angular multi-faceted sculpture appears different from every angle and invites the casual passer-by to wander around it to grasp its form.
With the advent of LED lamps suitable for outdoor lighting, ewo, the Bolzano-based, international manufacturer of high quality lighting systems asked Plasma Studio to develop a new type of street light adequate for this new technology.
After an extensive period of digital design, the breakthrough came at a hands-on workshop at ewo's fabrication facilities in Bolzano. It was revealing to see a prototype at its true height: 6m in the air. This set in motion a rigorous, yet instant, oscillation of alteration and assessment.
By remaining ambiguously between industrial and natural form, we observed that the object's relationship to the context has been surprisingly versatile: The light was first exhibited at Plasma Studio's Nodal Landscapes exhibition at the DAZ Berlin where it formed a dynamic extension to the orthogonal grids of a typical Berlin "Hinterhof". Thereafter the object was displayed in front of the ewo headquarter building, a contemporary context that enables it to articulate the link between the natural rocky backdrop and the man-made, orthogonal structures.
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