This story was originally published in Architectural Lighting.
Lightfair 2018 is just around the corner and will take place this May 6 – 10 at McCormick Place in Chicago. As part of the overall conference program, Lightfair has announced a comprehensive lineup of keynote speakers, seminars, workshops, and two, one-day forums dedicated to the topics of smart cities and light and health.
The keynote and impact speaker lineup is particularly impressive. On Sunday May 6, Danielle Feinberg of Pixar Animation Studios will discuss her work as the director of photography-lighting for the Academy Award-winning features WALL•E and Brave. She joined Pixar in 1997 and in addition to WALL•E and Brave, has worked on such films as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Most recently, she completed work on Coco, released in November 2017.
As the press release notes, “A native of Boulder, Colorado, Feinberg’s love of combining computers and art began when she was eight years old, and first programmed a Logo turtle to create images. This eventually led her to a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Harvard University. Now, in addition to her Pixar work, she works with teenage girls, encouraging them to pursue math and science by demonstrating to them the same beautiful simplicity she found with the programmed art of the Logo turtle.” She is also a TED talk presenter and was part of the PBS “Science and Wonder” presentation for TED Talks Live.
On Monday May 7, architect, designer and inventor Neri Oxman, the Sony Corporation Career Development Professor and Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute Technology (MIT) Media Lab will deliver a talk titled, “Innovation in Design,” sponsored by Eaton. Oxman founded, and currently directs, the Mediated Matter design research group at the MIT Media Lab. Her work crosses the disciplines of art and science and explores “the intersection of technology and nature” using computational design, digital fabrication, materials science, and synthetic biology.
In April 2017, at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Oxman and her team exhibited GLASS II, a glass 3D printing platform that they developed. She holds degrees from MIT, the Architectural Association in London, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
On Tuesday May 8, Martin Lesjak, CEO of INNOCAD Architecture, co-founded with and designer Anastasia Su, with whom he co-founded the product design firm 13&9 in Graz, Austria, will discuss their interdisciplinary design approach and how it has led “to creating product collections from concept through production in the spheres of lighting, furniture, floor coverings, fashion, accessories, exhibition and sound design.” According to the press release, “Their work relies on the interplay between architecturally-inspired forms and fashion and explores issues such as modularity, compatibility, flexibility and transformation in development of new products.”
Go to the Lightfair website for further details about this year’s conference program.
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