Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum opens today in London. The exhibition features 15 unique installations that challenge the changing nature of our relationship with objects and time. It runs through January 13, 2013.



Maarten Baas' Thought Cloud.

Explaining the central premise of the show, Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum says: "Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum explores the meaning of memory in the digital age, with the demise of the analogue era our relationship and connection with personal memory, photographs, diaries, letters, time and ephemera is changing. The exhibition takes this as its starting point, to question the future and our relationship with the changing world, where it seems all too easy to lose connection with the tangible and the real, as we move ever faster to a digital age where memory and the personal possessions we once held so highly are now online or gone in an instant."



Yves Behar's Amplify.

The participating designers, who are challenging the traditional notion of crystal, are: Random International, Semiconductor, Fredrikson Stallard, Troika, Anton Alvarez, Paul Cocksedge, Arik Levy, Philippe Malouin, Ron Arad, Hye-Yeon Park, Hilda Hellström, Marcus Tremonto, Yves Béhar, Maarten Baas and Beta Tank.

This is the most extensive endeavor yet from Nadja Swarovski, the Vice-President of International Communications for Swarovski of the eight-year-old Crystal Palace initiative, "which creates signature interpretations of light and design using the emotive medium of cut crystal." 



Ron Arad's Lolita. All images courtesy of David Levene.

Participate in the exhibition, and have your message appear on the 1000 LEDs in the crystals of Ron Arad's Lolita chandelier by tweeting #digitalcrystal. The exhibition is presented in partnership with Swarovski and media partner Wired.