Lighting

< 9 / 10 >

Laboratory Light

1983

Made of a laboratory retort stand, clamp and table, plastic funnel and rubber tubing.

Timeline

Jasper made this light from found laboratory equipment in autumn 1983, when he was living in Berlin and studying at the Hochschule der Künst. It was initially known as the Directional Light Source. In November 1983 he wrote to his parents telling them: It’s been quite a performance getting this light to shine because it’s made out of chemical apparatus, retort stands etc, and the place where I buy these things, Werkstadt Chemie, is run by chemists who speak no English whatsoever and don’t appreciate their serving counter being drawn on and furthermore can’t understand why anyone would want 20 funnels, six-foot retort stands and 50m of rubber tubing, but it’s shaping up ok.

The design theorist Michael Erlhoff bought the prototype – Jasper’s first sale in Germany. Jasper went on to show the light in Kaufhaus des Ostens, a project and exhibition organised with Andreas Brandolini and Joachim Stanitzek. He made three or four of them in all. The prototype was shown in the exhibition Schrill Bizaar Brachial: Das Neue Deutsche Design der 80er Jahre at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin in 2014.

Sketches and costings for the Laboratory Light while Jasper was living in Berlin.