In this episode, I speak with Zürich-based architect and artist Fabian Bircher, whose work spans buildings, custom lighting, and interactive installations.
Fabian discusses his unique creative process, where inspiration flows from both artistic concepts and the discovery of new technological possibilities.
The conversation explores the materiality of light through his Buoy lamps and dichroic foil installations, the process of revealing hidden digital systems with his "Reporting Device," and the unexpected role of randomness in creating kinetic art.
Liam Spradlin: All right, Fabian, welcome to Design Notes.
Fabian:
Thank you for the invitation.
Liam:
Okay. So just to get started, I want to know a little bit about your work, what you do, what you like to work on, what you're working on recently, and also kind of the journey that's led you there.
Fabian:
Yes, so my journey was that I was always interested in art and architecture and I was wondering what I should study and then I decided to study architecture because actually it was not only art and architecture, but also engineering. So in the end I studied architecture, but I still followed my other interests, which are more on the technical side, like programming and also a bit in the field of art. And I worked some years as an architect for myself or also employed. And on the side I always also realized art projects and I worked part-time as a programmer and then started mixing this a bit doing art projects which involve technical components, microcontrollers and stuff like that.
So yeah, this is the field that I'm working on and I did, this became my full-time occupation about two years ago when I finished a big project, a school where I worked as a project leader. And so two years ago I started doing more of these applications for art projects, art projects or lighting projects. So I built custom lamps and also light installations, which had technical components that make them work a bit other than expected. And also while I was working as an architect about 10 years ago, I started a project with my partner with Eva called Font to which are small lamps in the shape of wooden models, model towers. They look a bit like architectural models where you can connect them over the internet and send each other signals. If you turn one on one lamp on in the other lamp, it lights up in one room so the other person is at home. You could send you these emotional signals through contemporary technology. So this is probably a bit how it started, how I got into lighting projects always a bit with this technology on the side.
Liam:
Yeah, it's interesting to me that it sounds like the interest in the technical aspect and the creative aspect may have started off as kind of separate interests that you pursued, but now it seems like the technical component completes the creative vision. Is that right?
Fabian:
Yeah, kind of. Yes. It's sometimes my ideas come from the technological side or otherwise also from the artistic side. And then I look for a solution, how to make something interesting out of it if it's like a technical aspect that I recently discovered or otherwise, it's like this artistic concept that then I search for a technical solution. And I think my quality is kind of in the combination of these different fields of architecture, art and technology. Yes, I'm probably not very good at each of them, but I'm able to combine everything.
Liam:
It's that the technology is kind of being used to realize the creative vision
Fabian:
In some way, but it's also often that I find some technology that I then look for an application kind of. So it's both ways probably it can also be a problem, but that's probably because I'm also taking or taking care about the technology. So some ideas come also from this field. I think it's sometimes a challenge, especially if you know about technical solutions that you don't let you guide by the possibilities that you already know what's possible and whatnot. And I think this is sometimes an advantage if you're not such a technological person that you have somebody else or another can think about it later and sometimes fighting a bit against this tendency to check, if I can realize it within my knowledge at the time,
Liam:
How do you break out of what you already know in order to find a new solution? I mean, you said that you do a lot of research on the kind of technical possibilities, but where do you start?
Fabian:
Yeah, at some point for sure it's good to work together with other people. I have another mindset and then I'm probably more a bit focused about not only getting too much into technology, but it'll take part in the creative part or to force yourself to think, not to think about technology.
Liam:
Do you ever run into technological constraints that kind of change the creative aspect of the project?
Fabian:
Most projects probably you have a bigger vision in the beginning when you don't realize the real effort that you have to put in to realize the technology behind it because it always, on a conceptual level, it seems so easy and in the end you struggle with simple programming problems. You can have a technological idea concept so quickly and to realize it at least for me takes so much more time because there are unforeseen problems which you don't have in a semantic language. You can express your idea quite quickly, but then there's all these unforeseen possibilities, what can go wrong? And so this sometimes limits a bit the whole implementation of how far you can finally go in a certain time until the deadline.
Liam:
I want to continue to explore this relationship between technology and creativity by getting into some of your specific work. We actually met through the ria, which is for listeners who are outside Zurich. It's a kind of popup restaurant that happens for I think two weeks every year. Where what strikes me about it is that it's a place where I feel like a lot of the creative community in Zurich is coming together in order to create vercel, which is like a chestnut paste. It's eaten kind of like an ice cream and it always has a unique decorative style in the interior, students are making a variety of posters, there's ceramics and then of course one of the centerpieces of the place in my mind is the unique lighting fixtures that are there every year and always different. And that's how I first came across your work was through the Verma. You had done a series of lights called I think buoys. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about and how that project has gone?
Fabian:
Yes. The ES ria was founded by a few friends of mine. They do this every year and met at some point. We didn't know each other when they started this project, so we found together because I do this lamps and I things, and so it started that we did a light in the shape of a ES cell for one ES cell and then it got bigger and bigger and I started doing collection of lambs for each ES cell each year, which I did now the second time last year. And it's kind of a limited edition that you can see there and afterwards you can buy the lamp and they're super engaged in doing, they're definitely all design background. They work out the whole concept color concept and everything for the ESE each year a bit in a different way. And then we kind of work together or I adapt my light concept to their overall concept. So it has always a bit to do with the whole concept of the wear me cel and it's a bit less technological approach there because it actually has to lighten the space and not only be some installation without meaning
Liam:
For, but I mean I think the collection that you did two years ago now, the buoy lamps were still quite technically impressive and I'm curious what it's like to take an idea like that and make it this material thing because I've never seen a light like that before. For listeners, it's kind of, it's called buoy. It looks kind of like a buoy. It's made out of two kind of hemispherical plastic shells, one that's a color and one that I believe is frosted, and then inside there are crisscrossing light strips that kind of shine into one another. So you get this really unique color effect. But yeah, I want to know how that process went from coming up with the idea to the actual materials and production.
Fabian:
That's a good question. I not sure if I can remember how I came up with the idea, but then in general I like sailing and being on the sea, and so I have also this kind of nautical technology. So this is probably one reason how I came up with the name or also a bit the shape to have this ring screws and stuff like this as a bit the nautical touch and that you can also hang it on ropes and connect them together so you can hang them up in a series and connect each lamp to the next one. I also didn't have so much time since the concept by them for the whole wear was developed until I had to produce the lamps. So I did some renderings, 3D models and then had to order it without being able to do whole physical prototype. I only checked it on the visualizations and then had to order these hemispheres which were made especially for the lamp by putting it together. Then I noticed that some things were a bit more complicated than I imagined because I didn't simulate the building process. So by putting them together it got a bit more complicated to also put the cables in when you can almost not reach in anymore.
Liam:
You mentioned the kind of lighting effect that the frosted plastic gave, and that's something I'm really curious about because you've done several light installations and I want to know, I'm always interested in the kind of materiality of design and the effect that it has in its contact story and its environment, and I think light is a really interesting thing to talk about when it comes to that. So I wonder how you think about that in the work and kind of what your approach is
Fabian:
In some way. I'm always also how I came to lighting is that I always thought that there is more possibilities with lighting that I actually see in buildings or realize. And it's also not that I think my lights are able to make the atmosphere much better. So it's kind of a journey or a search. And what I always kind of interests me is also with this frosted glass or acrylic is that you don't exactly see what's behind. So it makes it a bit mysterious what's probably a bit taken away by the color tar, which is really transparent. So you can see the inside of the lamp, but with the frosted material it's always you have a bit an idea of what's behind. And also if you have a light source behind a linear, for example, if it's further away, it gets wider like the glare spot that you see.
So it also makes this a bit of confusion about depth and space and you don't really know what's behind or how it looks like. This is one aspect that interests me. And we also used in another project for lighting at the school, the ROIC foil, which I actually, I really only figured out when I try to simulate it on the computer what it actually means. And there are two kinds of colors that are widely available by a company. It's always in a certain, they have two colors that they reflect and two colors that they can get through. And then it depends on the angle that you look at it, and especially at this school where sometimes it's a bit difficult to apply color or have a color concept in a certain spot where probably there are already a lot of colors or no color at all. And it's kind of a way to create interesting light effects without choosing one color. And it also has this effect to irritate a bit or make it not so clear of what's exactly happening. And if you're not just looking at this oil but the light is going through or it reflects also then also depending on the angle of the light, the reflection will have this color fade now the light that goes through. So this is one of my favorite materials to work with besides the frosted material. So
Fabian:
I think this of a bit obstruction of that, you don't really see what's going on as a positive effect.
Liam:
Yeah, there's a lot about making the perception a it unclear or doing something that's not quite expected. The school project in particular is interesting to me because the school building itself is in a brutalist style, if I'm not mistaken. And you made a couple of interventions, one with the light and also one with the kiosk that both use this dichroic material. I wonder if you could talk about those two aesthetics kind of coming together. It's a brutalist concrete building, but it's a primary school and now you've added this mysterious kind of dynamic material to it. What was that project like?
Fabian:
Yeah, we were asked to do this lighting because this kind of covered it's outdoor space below a concrete ceiling, which is quite low. So it's about three meters, but it's quite a big area. So it's also during the day a bit dark and it's used as for playing ping pong and staying during the breaks if the children go outside. So it's all a bit gray and they wanted to have a bit more light also outside of the school hours when it also can be used by children. So they asked us to do this lighting and then we kind of were looking for a solution that you bring in some colors, but it was also a bit difficult because they had already art project, which were in certain colors, very strong colors from the whole building from the seventies. So it was a bit difficult to choose now a color palette to do this new lights or we also didn't want to do it just white. So there we also developed some quite a flat lamp called with some structured acrylic, which has on the inside this acrylic foil, so could the light source which was on the ceiling was reflected by this ROIC foil and made a color projection on the ceiling itself to make it look bigger. And with this effect of this color fades, it gets quite colorful if it turns on, but otherwise the material is this structured acrylic and aluminum, so it quite adapts itself to the brutalist concrete ceiling or also building.
Liam:
Yeah, it's interesting to have something so dynamic and changeable in the same context as something that the structure is so fixed and stuck. I also want to get into some of the other projects you've done that are more focused on devices because we've talked a lot so far about your work in lighting and the ways that that can make an environment dynamic, the ways that the light itself becomes dynamic in response to the materials that you're using. But when it comes to your device projects, you have a really clear aesthetic point of view. There's something like really crystallized there. Even I'm thinking about the reporting device that you designed that kind of mimics these weird palm tree shaped antennas in the us. And I want to know what's your approach to designing those types of devices? Maybe again, getting into this technological combination
Fabian:
In some way as I have a technological interest, it sometimes also I have to get away from it a bit because I also like the technological aesthetics. So the reporting device I did for the Illuminate Festival in the city of Tuk, so it's kind of this small space city which grew quite quickly and has the headquarters of a lot of companies and what was kind of farmers, a lot of these land where all these new companies have their headquarters was all farming land. And so it changed quite quickly. And this reporting device, which as you said is look like one of these camouflage mobile antennas, or also it has the boxes painted in this razzle pattern of warships so that you can see it. So maybe the visual approach of it is that it's kind of a camouflage, but this mobile antennas, it's quite obvious, so you see it quite well.
Or also this pattern in the city environment is quite, you see it like a S on the street, it's not hidden, but it has of this language of be trying to be invisible, but being actually quite visible and the function, how it works. It's also one of my interests is the whole call it the radio surroundings that we have all this wifi Bluetooth devices, different radio signals that surround us all the time. And I think it's quite interesting that probably it's from history that it's forbidden to listen to radio channels, that they're not allowed to a police channel or just channels that people are talking to. You're not allowed to listen or take any information out of it. This reflects a bit the problem I think of the past where there was no encryption and so on. And today I think everybody who broke us anything should take care about the privacy.
And so in this project it was just a small device with a wifi receiver which collected all the names of the reachable wifi devices access points, and it had a small speaker in public transportation or something like this cube speaker that read out every wifi access point that it collected so you could hear it on the street around it. So the device itself was fixed to a lamp pole. And that, as I said, this camouflage appearance also with a small blinking light, which made it quite obvious or also a bit visible that it's not a real infrastructure, but something else but try to hide itself. And when you pass by and you have your hotspot on your mobile phone, it would read out the name of your hotspot and it would also greet you if you visit again like a few hours later. So it's probably a bit, you could see it as a bit problematic from your privacy that it does that. But on the other hand, it's kind of the problem if you're sending it out, it's not that you're reading it out, it's not the problem. But the problem is that everybody could just collect this data.
And so it was also before I could complete this artwork, it was only there for a month. So before I installed this device, I had to discuss this in the city council because they thought it's a breach of privacy and people should be informed what this device does, so they can avoid it, they can walk on the other side of the street or take another street. And I had to put up posters which warned about this fact about what this device
Liam:
Is doing. I think that is so funny to me. It's fascinating in the sense that this device is again, interacting with the environment this time by exposing environmental factors that were already there the whole time. Additionally, it's really playing up this aesthetic of disguise that in this case fails on purpose, but I think in many cases just fails earnestly. But at the same time you had to put up signs essentially warning people about their privacy because of a device that was really just showing people what was already there in the first place. And the recommendation was not to add security to your phone's hotspot, but to avoid this device which will read out your phone's hotspot name to everyone. Yes,
Fabian:
Exactly.
Liam:
So in a sense, I could see getting that kind of policy interaction would be a win, but the outcome was still not quite hitting it.
Fabian:
Yes. Yeah. I think it's also shows a bit how much the city council knows about technology, but it's probably not only probably in a lot of lawmakers, councils and public councils problem.
Liam:
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a really important topic that actually it's so important to know how these systems work in the first place. And I think this device does that in kind of a cool way, even though the council might not have reached the right conclusion, it exposed the issue. I want to touch on one more project that kind of interacts with the environment in another way, which is the anthropomorphic form project. That's kind of like a dynamic architectural intervention, I would say. Can you talk a bit about what that is, how it came to be, what the process was like for creating that
Fabian:
Anthropomorphic form was done in collaboration with the architecture office from Zurich. They handed in or they applied for the Swiss art awards architecture and in a second step had to propose a project which could be realized on site of the Swiss art awards and that this idea of this textile roof, this form which can adapt to the visitors. And that's when they contacted me for the experience of how to build it. So from then on we did this application together and then realized it together. Where I took mostly my part was the development of this winches, this motors to move. It was like 30, 43 inches that moved this ceiling up and down and you could adjust it like the acceleration, speed and exact position. And on the other side also the algorithm that choose the forms which shape it should be. And for this reason we placed sensors in the whole hall, so it's like a quite big exposition hall, quite high hall. So we scattered these sensors around and in the whole hall there was the Swiss our exposition. So for the whole week this took place. There were a lot of people walking around or sometimes more, sometimes less, but it was always visited by quite some people and we figured out how many people are in which area by with Bluetooth sensors. But this was one aspect of the sensors. The other ones was the weather, temperature and other aspects. And so we wanted to create healing, adapting to the visitors or the environment.
Liam:
It has almost a personality of its own from all of these factors. Would it be something that could be interpreted by someone who was watching a visitor at the exposition? Do you think they could decode how the ceiling was behaving?
Fabian:
I think probably not because I mean think today with the artificial intelligence, we would do it probably a bit differently, but by then we made it kind of with probabilities which shape or in which direction it would move itself by the informations of the sensors. So I mean it's always with this installations, I think with kinetic installations in general, it's a bit the question, if you work with sensors and so on, do you want to have a certain sensor reading and then choose a shape that represents the sensor reading or where you can exactly see what happens or is it so that you can see the relation, but then it could also finally be random and maybe it would even open up a bigger field of interpretation. It would actually in the end be more interesting. Then you can think if it's even necessary to have the sensors or could it just work with a very good random engine. And I think we did kind of a mix that in some ways you could try to interpret it and it could be right, but it's also part of it, which you can't foresee.
Liam:
There's again this kind of element of mystery or you can't probably can't even perceive the whole ceiling at once. So you can only observe what's happening kind of locally and try to guess what it means. Yes.
Fabian:
And it's actually after we did this installation, I got also quite interested by the artificial randomness and I read a book by James Bridle where he explains this a bit more about first computers to pick random numbers for the lottery and so on, and how they also used randomness for democratic systems in Greece and so on. And so I think my appreciation for randomness got quite big because I think it's an interesting, like I said, instead of sensors, you could also use a random engine. Where you have always the best is if you have this analog feed, which because computers by itself, they can't generate randomness, so you need an analog input. And actually it might be the most interesting solution if you choose use sensors for this analog input and then generate this real randomness.
Liam:
Yeah, I remember reading recently, I think it's the company CloudFlare has in their office, they have a wall of lava lamps and there's a camera taking a picture and interpreting the position of the lava and the lava lamps to make, I dunno, encryption keys or something.
Fabian:
Yeah, exactly. I also read about this. I think it's for the encryption key, and they also kind of encourage people to interact with the lamps. So if somebody's in front of the camera, it doesn't matter because it's another layer of randomness. I think it's quite a nice project.
Liam:
How are these kind of, I'm interested in how all of these kind of installations or environments that you've created interact with the people who encounter them.
Fabian:
Yeah, maybe I can tell it from a personal perspective. I think also my aim in my work changed a bit over time, of course, but also since I started to doing this kind of professionally and another as side business or hobby, one part is always this experimenting and you try out new stuff, which is interesting now, AI language models, how you can use them for robotics and stuff like this. And on the other hand, since I'm started doing this professionally, you also think about does it make any sense you need resources, you build stuff, does somebody need this? Or what can you achieve by doing these kind of installations? Because compared to architecture, it's quite other challenge because buildings, you can build a primary school, it's quite obvious that you need this, you can try to build it sustainable. But with a art project or art installation as an artist, without the big audience, I'm always wondering, does somebody need this or why should I do it? And can it just say a concept? It's always a bit this reflecting part contrary to the experiments that I'm doing.
Liam:
I mean, that's a question, especially for art that might not have an answer. I think many artists would say like, no, of course not, but you have to make it anyway.
Fabian:
Yes, I think this is true because if you don't have a big, big audience, it's quite difficult to say why it has to be done otherwise. I mean, if you're famous, you have probably different challenges, but then every effort you put to into network, which rises awareness of climate change and stuff will reach a lot of people and be worth it. But if you do it and nobody is interested in it, you ask yourself, is it worth to do this? Because it actually pollutes the environment by using resources. Yeah,
Liam:
A big part of the reason why I do this show the way that I do is that I think people working on all kinds of creative fields, whether it's art, design, technology, and all of the subcategories that fit within those, we all have something to learn from one another that can help our own practice. So I want to know from your perspective, working on all the things that we've talked about today, what's something that designers or technologists should be focused on in this moment?
Fabian:
Yeah, I think even if I'm not the first one to say this probably at all, I think one of the biggest challenges at the moment is ai, how to handle it or work with ai. I did this robotic project where I'm experimenting with this language models, how to use them to control the robot. And I think it's quite interesting, but it's also a bit alarming that I know I don't have the possibility at all to develop such a system by myself. So I think in the future we will be quite dependent on these LLMs, and I think we have to figure out a way how to keep our work, keep our identity.
Liam:
And I wonder if you have any ideas. I mean, it's a question that everybody's trying to answer now, but if you have any ideas how creative people can do
Fabian:
I mean, of course you and of people at Google are probably totally doing this, but I think a lot of designers are not so aware, don't have the programming skills or technological skills to totally get into it. And I think this gets also with these language models, I mean, on one way it's quite accessible because you use natural language. On the other hand, I think you have to get used or I see, especially for me as a solution, that you have to get used to use this APIs and how to work with these models in a technological way where we can use every aspect and combine them and so on. So in some way, I think it continues with what happened also over the last 20 years. So I think all the fields of creativity get a bit more technological. I mean, it's more accessible, but on the other hand, you have also to be more aware about what it can do, what its limitations are, and how to properly use them.
Liam:
I think that's a great point to wrap up on, Bobby, and thank you again for joining me today.
Fabian:
You're welcome. Thank you for the invitation.
