Nothing

The incandescent bulb was a source of electric light. LEDs, which are made of small diodes that light up when they are crossed by current, are positioned on an electronic circuit. For both cultural (to gain acceptance by users) and practical reasons (rethinking light as a whole, starting with a clean slate after a century of design, requires effort and resources), nearly all the LED lamps on the market today fail to make full use of the potential of this new light source. With Nothing, Francisco Gomez Paz has done the exact opposite: he has restored LEDs their true nature as ‘little nothings’ capable, nevertheless, of lighting up our spaces.

He has been so successful that it might even seem strange, or almost inappropriate, to call this system a ‘lamp’. Nothing is a piece of aluminium sheet on which electronic circuits and LEDs are attached: a very thin, flat, laser-cut surface developed by Gomez Paz thanks to a complex process of mathematical development. When the two ends of the aluminium sheet are pulled at the same time, it opens to transform into a very light three-dimensional object. Nothing, as its name implies, is made of nothing. It not only comes from a simple sheet, but also has no diffuser, no body. It has been conceived for use together with a white wall that reflects the light.