Dezeen Magazine

Personal Reading in Public Sites by Luzinterruptus

Here's another guerrilla lighting project in Madrid by Spanish designers Luzinterruptus, which involved creating "cosy" places to relax and read crime novels in undesirable parts of town.

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The installation, called Personal Reading in Public Sites, consisted of reading lamps and crime novels distributed at 12 sites across the city.

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"These places would not normally catch our eye, we would not like to stay there for a long time at night," say the designers.

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It was carried out on the night of 5 January and lasted 5 hours.

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Photos are by Gustavo Sanabria.

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The following information is from Luzinterruptus:

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This intervention used light from lamps and books and was carried out during a freezing night in Madrid on Monday 5th January 2009.

12 sites were chosen in different areas of Madrid such as Noviciado, Malasaña and Alonso Martínez. These places would not normally catch our eye, and we would not like to stay there for a long time at night. Our objective was to transform them into more comfortable, cosy places in which you could spend some time at leisure.

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In order to achieve this, we installed some small and traditional lamps from which crime and detective novels hung by strings. It was enough to create an intimate atmosphere for relaxed reading at night.

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Hidden places in scaffolding, a homeless sleeping-place, a box office of an old cinema which closed years ago, the emergency exit of a theatre under construction, the interior of a small concrete container, a bus stop on a commercial street at night, a condom machine after it has been looted, an entrance to a closed shop, a bus stop where buses have never stopped, an out-of-order photo booth, an unnecessary bollard in an empty street, the empty carton bed belonging to a tramp. These sites inspired us more than others.

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The wonderful photos are by Gustavo Sanabria, who waited in the freezing cold while we promised him a coffee and a heated car for the next time.

Time of installation: 3 hours
Damages: none
Exhibition time: betwen 2 – 5 hours
Reading time: 5 hours
Electricity consumption: 0

More Dezeen stories about Luzinterruptus:

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Luz Interruptus