KOERT VERMEULEN: THINKING ABOUT LIGHTING NOT ONLY DOING LIGHTING

　　KOERT VERMEULEN：要设计，更要思考

　　个人简介Biography

　　Koert Vermeulen, founder, managing partner and principal designer of ACT Lighting Design. With over 20 years of experience in the fields of architecture, entertainment and art installations, Koert Vermeulen, is today a worldwide renowned lighting designer, with major successes.

　　比利时ACT Lighting Design灯光设计公司合伙人、设计总监。Koert Vermeulen在照明行业已有超过20年的经验，专注于建筑照明、舞台娱乐灯光和艺术装置等领域，完成了很多成功的作品，在国际上有很高的知名度。

　　Inspired by the modernity and creativity of his native city, Koert started his career in 1989, when he founded his first professional lighting & sound supply company. After founding ACT lighting design in 1995, Koert started to expand his work to entertainment lighting such as stage plays, urban operas, and then the architectural lighting and art installation, all of which are highly praised.

　　1989年，现代和创新意识开始渗透Koert的家乡，深受触动的Koert创立了自己第一家专业灯具与音响公司。1995年成立了自己的灯光设计公司ACT Lighting Design，Koert的路越走越宽。从舞台和娱乐灯光开始，渐渐把业务范围扩展至建筑和艺术装置领域，并且都取得了非常出色的成绩。

　　Koert Vermeulen is regularly invited to share his thoughts and expertise, by giving lectures and speeches at conferences. A guest professor from 2004 to 2008 at the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, teaching a course on “Lighting Design”, Koert is also a member of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA).

　　工作之余，Koert也常常受邀以讲座和会议演讲的形式分享他个人的理念和专业知识。Koert曾于2004年-2008年之间担任比利时安特卫普皇家美术学院的客座教授，讲授灯光设计课程。同时，Koert也是国际照明设计师协会和国际主题公园协会的会员。

　　Alighting Design: How did you get into the lighting industry?

　　《阿拉丁·设计》：您是怎样进入照明行业的?

　　KV: It’s the lighting industry that came into me. At the age of 14, I was already watching with lighting, and I knew early at that age that lighting would be my destiny and made decision to do something with lighting. It’s the time that I even didn’t know anything about lighting design. Lighting is just interesting to me. At that age, I started to buy lighting products for all kinds of small parties, fashion shows and concerts in my hometown. From that on, I went into some bigger concerts and worked as a stagehand for the big starts in America, UK, etc. That’s a big chance and I learned a lot of our industry.

　　KV：应该说，不是我主动走进照明行业，而是它走进我的生命。在我14岁的时候，我已经开始跟灯、跟光打交道。也就是在那个时候，我就已经感觉到这是我的宿命，并下定决心要做出一番成绩来，尽管我对灯光设计还一无所知。灯光对我有着很不一般的吸引力。我开始在乡镇里举办的各个小型聚会、表演秀或者音乐会上奔波，为他们采购灯具。这是一个起步，后来我开始接触到更大的音乐会，为来自美国、英国等世界各地的明星做舞台管理。这是一个很重要的际遇，也是我大部分专业知识的来源。

　　Alighting Design: When you started in lighting, was there any designer ever making influence on you?

　　《阿拉丁·设计》：在您入行时，有哪些设计师曾经影响过您?

　　KV: When I was 14, there was no real lighting designer. People who did lighting did not only lighting, he did everything. He might load the truck, set up the lighting, be the consultant, and at the end of the concert, he put everything back to the truck…I really found out that there was real lighting designer when I was about 18 years old, that I understood there were actually people thinking about how to do lighting, and I thought I should be someone like that, thinking about lighting not only doing lighting. The most influential people were all from the theatre and the concert industry, like Michael, Mark…, they are my heroes. Then later when I was about 20, I started to look at the lighting artists, which I think is the other layer to lighting.

　　KV：可以说，当我14岁“入行”的时候，还没有真正的灯光设计师。那些处理灯光的人并不只是做灯光设计，他可能什么都兼顾。比如，在表演开始前他可能需要将灯具装车，然后负责安装灯具，充当顾问，而表演结束后他再将所有东西搬回货车上……到真正发现灯光设计师的存在的时候，我已经18岁了。我第一次知道有人会切切实实考虑怎样表现灯光，我立志要成为这样的人，要用脑袋去思考，而不仅仅是动手去做。对我来说，在职业生涯上影响我最深的都是来自戏剧和音乐会领域的大咖，比如Michael, Mark等等，他们都是我心目中的英雄。而到了20岁左右的年纪，我开始将注意力放在灯光艺术家身上，我想这是灯光设计的另一个层次了。

　　Alighting Design: What fascinates you the most about light?

　　《阿拉丁·设计》：灯光最吸引您的是什么?

　　KV: Lighting is energy, is one of the known energy that can be use in our life. We designers always try to control it. I was finally able to understand a little bit about what we can do maybe about 10 years ago. It still amazed me every day, not only the pure beauty of light, but also about how it influence people, which you can bring into health care or any other field. That’s the energy we actually control and is always possibilities.

　　KV：光是我们生活中已知的可利用能源之一，我们灯光设计师总是尝试去控制它，而我也只是在大概10年前才了解到其中的一些皮毛。对我来说，灯光每天都是新鲜的。吸引我的不仅仅是它美丽的光线，还有它对人造成的影响，它所能进入的领域(比如医疗卫生)。这是我们所能控制和利用的，光充满了可能性。

　　Alighting Design: What is your design philosophy?

　　《阿拉丁·设计》：您的设计理念是什么?

　　KV: It really depends on the projects. For architectural lighitng, we put human in the middle, and think about what would human beings feel, see, experience about this kind of lighting. You always expect a good show, so you put the human perspective in the middle. When we do architectural lighting and entertainment lighting, the design philosophy will be slightly different. In architectural projects, it’s very much human-centered, while sometimes in entertainment lighitng design, human-centered design could be pushed aside by the ego and the philosophy is more likely directed by the visual effect.

　　KV：我的设计理念通常取决于项目本身。对于建筑照明，我们会将人摆在重心位置，考虑人的感觉、视觉等多方面的体验。舞台灯光也是一样，要想达到最佳的效果，就必须要把观众的视点为主要参考。但建筑照明和舞台灯光的设计理念又会有所区别：建筑照明非常讲究以人为本，而舞台灯光有时候则会受到自我意识的左右，同时更加倾向于追随视觉效果。

　　Alighting Design: How is the lighting profession in Belgium? What changed most over the past 20 years about the industry and yourself?

　　《阿拉丁·设计》：在比利时，照明行业的发展如何?过去20年来行业最大的变化是什么?您自己最大的变化又是什么?

　　KV: The independent lighting design profession is not that huge in Belgium, and I think it’s not really important to a single country, I’d like to see it in the whole Europe. In the past 20 years, I think the influence of lighting designers has increased a lot, we are much more appreciated now than 20 years ago. I think only 5% of the buildings are designed with the lighting designer. That means 95% of the buildings are constructed and designed by other people, the architect, the engineer, the manufacturer, etc. Their influence is much bigger. But the changes I’v seen, is that for quality, people are going into the direction of independent lighting designers. If they really want the quality, they will find them. IALD, association of lighting designers, has getting into the European and the American governments, trying to get influence on regulations and laws. It’s the biggest changes that the quality of lighting becomes a big part with responsibility. With the icon, independent lighting designers really should work hard to continue that.

　　KV：独立照明设计行业在比利时真的太小了，而且我想这对一个国家来说影响并没有那么大，所以，我们还是以整个欧洲为视角吧。过去20年，我感觉照明设计师的影响力和自身价值都有很大幅度的提升。我想，只有5%的建筑的灯光是找专业设计师设计的，这意味着剩下的95%都是其他非专业人员，如建筑师、工程师、灯具厂商等完成的。但我也看到了一个可喜的变化——对质量的追求让人们对独立照明设计师趋之若鹜。一些照明设计协会，像IALD，已经渐渐进入到欧洲和美国的政府系统，试图在法律法规上得到更多的重视。总之，最大的变化是质量成为了灯光设计中一个重要“义务”。被贴上这个标签，独立照明设计师真的应该继续努力。