Thursday Salute to Originals: Roomba Light Paintings
“As Seen on TV” Meets Artistic Lighting Design
The Roomba, an automatic vacuum cleaner product which typically graces the shelves of big-box stores, has taken on a new meaning by artfully merging with lighting technology.
A group of students in Germany’s Braunschweig University of Technology found a creative use for the popular robotic cleaning device. They created an image series of time lapse photos of the Roomba vacuum moving around with a colored LED light attached. While this sounds simple enough and reflects much of the light painting methodology, these students took it one step further by placing obstacles in the room, thereby designating space that the Roomba cannot pass into and which remain dark. They also used accelerometer-driven LEDs so that the color light emitted was dependent upon the vacuum’s movement.
The result is a series of dynamic, emotive images which capture a calculated celebration of pattern and light. We salute the Braunschweig students for their unique idea and equally thoughtful execution. After these images, we can never look at a vacuum cleaner without imagining its potential to pair with lighting and set leash to an unsuspecting living room.
Image credits: Design Boom