spanish designer jorge mañes has sent us a sneak peek of his new collection of lamps that he will be launching
at the upcoming madrid design fair, march 27th to 31st. ‘useless lamps’ is a series of designs that aim to
confront expectations of longevity in product design. mañes was curious to see what happens when a design
is created that is intended to disappear. the end result of this process is a series of lamps that capture electrical
lights frozen in blocks of ice. once the lamp is turned on, the ice begins to slowly melt and eventually the lamp
will no longer be useful. mañes points out, ‘the same light that gives it life is simultaneously slowly depleting
its existence’. the video below shows early experiments with the project while the images show the suspension
lamps (5 litre of ice) and big floor lamp (280 litres of ice) that are the final designs. the project will later be
exhibited at tools galerie in paris beginning april 2nd.

http://www.seethisway.com