With a dramatic flourish, senior Ray Chen tipped a large chef’s knife toward the ceiling before sinking it into a small white cake, causing its multi-colored lights to pulse. Chen’s fellow students gasped, clapped, and laughed in delight.
“Do it again,” begged a classmate seated across the black conference table. Chen obliged, and a different pattern of colored lights blinked.
“It feels like you’re conducting with a knife,” said teacher August Luhrs, as he snapped photos on his phone.
It was Weird Lamp Week in the Tisch School of the Arts course “Electronics for Artists,” and Chen’s vanilla chiffon cake-lamp kicked off the presentations. Undergraduate students enrolled in this Collaborative Arts class took turns showcasing their LED projects, including a traffic light desk lamp, a chandelier made with green bottles that lit up to the beat of music, a flashing necklace, and a blue floral hat embellished with strands of lights. Each presentation was met with applause and questions about the student-artists’ processes, discoveries, and challenges.
