Richard Clarkson's Cloud lamp: thunder, lightning, Arduino

Allan Chochinov of the new MFA Products of Design, alerted me to the work of one of his students, Richard Clarkson. It's called The Cloud.

The project is an Arduino-controlled "cloud" that mimics thunder and lighting, and doubles as a dynamic audio visualizer. I think the work is both poetic and remarkable, and can be interpreted along a broad spectrum of "products of design." Richard sees the piece as an exploration of different design platforms—from a DIY kit (he shares the Arduino code on the link) to a production lamp to a speculative object to a piece of rarefied design art. He looked at several analogous price points — from free to exclusive — all the while offering up the plans for others to grow the project with. I'm impressed that Richard was able to hit all these notes with a single piece of work.

The Cloud