01 / Experience
A structure drawn in light.
O.T. 1407 brings steel and animated light into public space at the Amsterdam Light Festival #14. Its six-by-eight-by-three-metre frame carries 26 custom outdoor LED strings, turning an open structure into a changing field of lines.
The physical frame remains visible while the light changes its emphasis. The work has to function both as an object at the scale of the city and as a precisely coordinated light installation.
- Artwork title
- O.T. 1407
- Year
- 2025
- Location
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- My contribution
- Technical lead, prototyping, custom LED system, production coordination, installation, mechanical design
- Homepage contribution summary
- Technical direction & mechanical design
- Artistic authorship
- Stefan Reiss
- Commissioner
- Amsterdam Light Festival #14
- Context
- Commission / artist collaboration
Festival location next to the H’ART Museum in the historic Amstelhof. Photograph: Stefan Reiss.
02 / My contribution
From an artist’s proposal to an installable system.
I worked with Stefan Reiss as technical lead, and mechanical design took up a substantial part of the project time. I developed prototypes and coordinated the LED system, production and installation, translating the artistic proposal into information that manufacturers and contractors could work from.
The installation had to be transported in a compact form and assembled on site. Its mechanical design therefore connected the structure’s finished geometry to the practical sequence of fabrication, transport and assembly.
Development
Prototyping, mechanical design and custom LED hardware.
Integration
Control equipment, connections and assembly planning.
Delivery
Production coordination and on-site installation.
03 / System
Twenty-six light elements. One coordinated installation.
The large number of LEDs and the outdoor winter presentation made the lighting system a particular challenge. Each strip had to be custom-length, weather-protected, and integrated into a controllable installation.
I built the system from industrial-standard hardware, added custom-made parts and fine-tuned the components to deliver the planned visual result. The work lay in adapting and integrating that hardware for the installation’s specific lengths, environmental conditions and control requirements.
Custom-cast wire bushing.
Casting mould for custom parts.
Power and control equipment inside the installation enclosure.
Custom-produced outdoor programmable LED-strip
04 / Development
Designing the journey to site.
The drawing sequence separates the full structure into assemblies and shows how the frame is organised. The photographs then move from small components to full-scale handling.
Together, they document the practical side of the work: the installation takes shape through component development, fabrication information and the assembly of a structure much larger than any individual part.
Exploded assembly study of specific frame angles.
Drawing for the manufacturer.
Handling the full-scale steel assembly during setup.
Installing custom LED strips. Photograph: Stefan Reiss.