Energy costs are going up. Grid usage is becoming more clogged and black and brownouts are always a possibility. In a world characterized by the last few lines, is there any light which can be trusted to turn on every time? There is one light that follows a roughly 12-hour cycle and comes on every day. And even if it where to go out, it offers an 8 minute buffer of old light before it wouldn’t matter any more, anyways.
Courtesy of SonUmbra
If you guessed that the above refers to one of the new compact fluorescent bulbs put out in recent years, you would be wrong. The above description refers in a veiled fashion, to the sun. Its rays impact our planet ever day, rain or shine and the technology enabling humanity to harness these rays is evolving and progressing just as continuously. Recently, a fabric of light sensitive, light-energy storing/emitting fibres called SonUmbra and created by the textile architects Loop.pH, has harnessed the power of Sol to light up the night time in a free and yet intensely attractive way.
Courtesy of SonUmbra
These tree shaped light-objects aren’t those cheap, tinny solar powered ball-lights one sees pinned down along suburbia’s walks and driveways. The trees are one edifice of the technology, but certainly not the only one. Screens, windows, latices… the list of possibilities goes on.
By Matt Davis
Courtesy of SonUmbra
