Carlos Fortes

Why did you choose to work in lighting design?

“I originally wanted to work in movies, but when I started working for Esther Stiller and Gilberto Franco something just clicked, I felt inspired and wanted to explore this field further. Lighting design enables you to promote a sense of well-being, to create a specific ambience, although people are not always aware of this. You may not be able to determine what people feel, but you can enhance their mood, and that’s very rewarding.”

How do you like to use light?

“We like to design artistic lighting for exhibitions, for example, where a more intuitive, emotional approach is required. When we were asked to light the ‘Luzombra’ (‘luz’ = light, ‘sombra’ = shadow) lamp showroom to demonstrate thekind of feelings, effects and atmospheres you can create with light, it was immediately clear to us that we would do this in an almost scenographic way using ambiguity, that paradoxical thing of light and shadow, full and empty, concave andconvex, light and colours.”

What concept did you use for this?

“We worked in four different ambiences, each based on a different concept. The first was illusion. We tried to get away from the traditional living-room ambience by using hard, cold and plain black glass cube-shaped poufs with a curvy table made from a tree trunk. The concept was based on using opposites – organic versus geometric, nature versus industry – to show there is more than one way to light an object or surface and that light can create specific emotions.”

“Another concept involved the distortion of perception, using concave and convex surfaces and varying the lighting. Sometimes it was not possible to tell whether they were concave or convex. We also used a wall of nails to show how you can distort perception and influence the way people perceive objects or ambiences. The nails not only had a design in perspective but were also positioned at varying depths in the wall – at the start they were almost completely buried and gradually they protruded more and more until at the end point they were almost sticking out of the wall entirely.”

“What you see varies considerably depending on the light and whether there are any shadows.

When the wall was lit it looked like an embroidery pattern, an entanglement of lines and textures. You saw the shadows of nails on the wall rather than seeing the nails in perspective.

I wanted to create the illusion of embroidery, a lacework. The lacework didn’t exist, it was generated by the shadows and empty spaces on the wall.”

“In a third room we worked with the reverse of the previous idea, an ambience without shadows. We created totally diffuse, homogeneous lighting with no shadows, just like Japanese architects do using rice paper, sometimes mounting it on a wooden framework. We placed a back-lit metal framework in front of a plain white wall, which reflected the light from this framework to produce indirect lighting. The reflection created the same sensation as diffuse lighting, and we used mirrors on the three other walls of the room to create multiple reflections. There was diffuse light from all sides and endless repetition of the images. We also fragmented one of the mirrored walls and then worked with both multi-reflection and fragmentation of the images. The idea was not to show the light sources.”

Did you use colour in this project?

“We played with colour and light using a white wall with acrylic pegs of different textures and shapes backlit by an RGB system. Depending on the composition and whether we used coloured lighting from behind the acrylic pegs or ambientlighting on the front, it seemed as if the pegs themselves were a light source or coloured object. If the ambience is very bright and the colour behind is not very saturated, what you actually see is small circles. You can’t really tell ifwhat you are seeing is light or coloured buttons on the wall. If you eliminate light from the ambience, however, and use completely saturated coloured lighting from behind the wall, you get a bright ambience that is lit by this colour. So, using the exact same light source and other resources we created the illusion of colour and light.”

Do the feelings you want to convey vary according to the project?

“Yes, definitely. A completely different atmosphere is required for a company canteen for 200 people than for a more sophisticated, romantic restaurant that serves 30. You need to feel you are in that place. It’s not just about thefood, it’s about the conversation, the occasion, the ambience.”

Tell us a little about your outdoor projects.

“In 2007 we lit a small pub here in São Paulo called ‘Escape’. There had to be a clear distinction between the street outside and the pub interior to create an ‘escapist’ ambience where people would feel at ease, as if they had left behind the hustle and bustle of every-day life. Through a garden, you enter a space with a very high ceiling and branches and tree trunks. There are mirrors on the ceiling and lights embedded in the floor shine upwards through the dry branches, like uplights, and the mirrors on the ceiling reflect the light back down, casting intense light on the trunks. Programmed coloured fluorescent lights change very slowly from violet to blue and we lit other ambiences with incandescent xenon lights in warm colours with low intensities. The lighting in the pub is diffuse, low-intensity and elsewhere it is localised.”

“We wanted people to feel they had left behind the hustle and bustle of everyday life and entered somewhere different with a cosy, entertaining ambience.

We tried to create an ambience that was in such stark contrast to the one people had just come from that they would notice it the minute they entered the pub and instantly forget the world they had just left behind. I think we succeeded in creating an ambience where people will come to ‘escape’ after work for a drink with friends, as if entering a different dimension, a different state of mind.”

What trends do you see in the market?

“These days everyone is trying to work with sustainable sources, efficient, low-energy lighting solutions and considering the recycling possibilities.”

What changes have you seen in the field of lighting design?

“In terms of products and technologies, things are improving all the time. Ten years ago it would have been unheard of to use fluorescent lamps to create a cosy, friendly atmosphere with lowintensity lighting and good colour rendering. In terms of emotion, I think the minimalist approach people favoured in the 80s and 90s has been reversed and instead of wanting their homes to be white, clean, almost devoid of emotion, with no shadows, defects or texture, people now want a home that is less perfect, more expressive, with more emotion – and the lighting to suit.”

Do trends vary from one country to another?

“The way you project and see light is determined by the kind of climate you live in. Here in South America, where the weather is sunny and the sky is blue for most of the year, our experience of natural light and light at night is different from that of people in Scandinavia, for example, where they have very few sunny days and months without any sunlight. Their experience of the environment is bound to be different from ours, and this will be reflected in their understanding of architecture and their approach to lighting design.”

What inspires you now?

“There are so many different things that inspire me – an art exhibition, cinema… The photography in a movie sometimes makes me want to see certain effects, to use light in certain ways.”