This project started like many others, relative to the world of lighting.

I, Eleonora Gilli, and Matteo Menegazzo tried to approach the research part in an innovative way, giving it a central role in the project.

Starting with contextual references, we then shifted the focus to out-of-context references, arriving at clairvoyance.

The project opens with the most mundane of research, which starts with the market. We selected several lamps without any research limits, to see what really appealed to us.

From this first phase, we noticed that the two most recurring themes in the identified references was magic and user interaction.

This was interesting in that we could consider light as a physical element, with which to interact.

Based on this assumption, then, which phenomena intrigue us most in the world of perception?

Apparatus consisting of two discs one with figures, the other with slits that through simultaneous movement are able to give the illusion of a moving image.

Pepper's Ghost is an illusionary technique used in theater, houses of horrors and various magic tricks. It uses a sheet of glass, Plexiglas or other plastic film combined with special lighting techniques to give the illusion of objects appearing and disappearing, becoming transparent or fitting inside others (morphing).

Anamorphism is an optical illusion effect whereby an image is projected onto the plane in a distorted manner, making the original subject recognizable only if the image is observed according to certain conditions, such as from a precise point of view or through the use of deforming instruments.

Other individual references:

- Mother Murderer, Teatro Clandestino (theater)

- Bros, Romeo Castellucci (theater)

- Oliafur Eliasson (personality)

- Bandersnatch (film)

- Michael Murphy (personality)

Subsequent to this Blue Sky Research, we focused on choosing a type of magic that intrigued us most.

This gave rise to our interest in clairvoyance and we studied its various facets.

Clairvoyance is the supposed ability to know events, places or objects, which may be distant (in time or space) or hidden, through extrasensory perception. One who is gifted with it is called clairvoyant.

Types of clairvoyance:

-Positive or voluntary: through this clairvoyance the individual is able to investigate and see into the unseen worlds while maintaining full mastery and with proper awareness of what he or she is doing.

-Negative or involuntary: it manifests independently of the will of the individual who therefore has no possibility of intervening in what is happening. The seer is therefore helpless, defenseless, and has no control.

-Wandering: to define those forms of clairvoyance characterized by the fact that the psychic does not perceive the scene from a distance, but has the distinct sensation of being immersed in it, of being able to move and notice all its details.

-Tactile or Psychosometric: concerning the perception of images and sensations, only through the simple touch of an object.

-Cryptoscopic: encompasses cases where the seer feels or has vision of great distant catastrophes.

After defining our research focus, we developed a series of matrices. This tool was useful for us to find the points to balance within the lamp collection.

The key words we chose to play on in the final were:

- Decorate (active/aesthetic)

- Discover (active/functional)

- Observe (passive/aesthetic)

- Receive (passive/functional)

After that, we formally defined our lamp collection that makes its main ingredient the conception of light as a magical element.

Formal level: parchment

2D texture: smooth, paper, reflection

3D texture: fabric

Shada is a family of lamps that brings mysterious, unconnotable elements into the living environment.

These strangers want to push us into interaction with them, making us rediscover light as a physical element.

Too often we reduce light to a functional use, when it can be important to have a relationship of wonder with it. This is precisely why we do not want it to be immediately understandable to use an object that, perhaps, makes light.

We need to make contact with the stranger in our home, trying to interact with it in order to make it do what it is there to do. We must be clairvoyant and try to understand what will happen after an action we take on him. We must make use of touch in order to fully understand him.