Swapnil Jadhav

'Ugoku Kage' is the Japanese phrase for moving shadows.
The lamp is able to transform the quality and quantity of light it projects and hence the shadow it casts by allowing each section of the four sections to move relative to the other sections. The motion of the sections is achieved through simple mechanical linkages. 

Inspiration :
FROM ANIME - The inspiration metaphor of “transformation as magic” for the lamp came from the movie 'My Neighbor Totoro' and this sense of wonder that is shown by the sisters towards the creatures transforms the supernatural into something magical. 

Totoro is a story of 2 sisters who have just moved to the countryside with their to be closer their mother who has been hospitalized for some illness. The story is about them adapting to the country side and then encountering a number of strange and magical creatures in and around their house and in the adjoining woods.
The sense of wonder instead of fear,shown by the two sisters at magical nature of the supernatural creatures in this movie is possible only to the truly innocent.

FROM TRADITION -The traditional aesthetic goal was Shibui which in a physical object manifest as a subtle balance of simplicity and complexity, textures and details.

Concept
The initial idea was to develop a mechanism that would produce a seamless transformation which could be perceived as magical. The aim was to have a movement that caused a "wow" reaction in the user.
My first idea for mechanism worked fairly well when constrained to 2D planar objects but translating it to a 3D form while keeping the fluid nature of the movement became something of a challenge. A number of prototypes were developed to help evolve the mechanism so that it would work when the object was more that a few inches tall. 

Using a single layer of the mechanism on each end of the lamp sections was not able to replicate the smooth movement seen in the 2D model. 

Using the 2 copies of the mechanism in a mirrored form, with the sections in the middle acting as connectors resulted in the concept that gave a very interesting but different form of articulation. This was then refined for the final prototype.