The Irradiator is one of our oldest and most stubbornly popular works. It began around 2012–2013 as a simple decorative idea for our booth at the Faces & Laces festival — nothing grand, nothing conceptual, just a small experiment in moving air and light.
HOW IT STARTED
The initial inspiration came from Berlin nights: people standing around metal barrels with open fires, watching the flames rise into the dark. I wanted to recreate that sense of upward motion — but safely, without actual fire.
The first prototype was embarrassingly simple: a fan, a bundle of colorful threads, and two chairs to balance it on. It didn’t work at all; the airflow was too weak.
Out of frustration I turned the fan horizontally — and suddenly the threads lifted, curled, and danced perfectly. That accidental moment became the seed of the entire project.
HOW IT EVOLVED
Over the following years we refined the object endlessly.
The naked fan with strings grew into a fully formed sculpture:
– we built bodies from glass-cement,
– printed our graphics directly onto the shells,
– tested dozens of fan types and power levels,
– built entire rooms where every wall acted as a vertical wind machine sending material upward.
Eventually we abandoned the threads. We switched to glossy silver ribbons from carnival shops — essentially fancy Christmas tinsel. We experimented with length, density, airflow, turbulence — until the motion became fluid, hypnotic, and reliably magical.
THE DISCOVERY
At Faces & Laces the object was supposed to be decoration, nothing more.
Instead, it immediately turned into a human magnet.
People walked up to the swirling column of ribbons and instinctively stuck their faces inside. They dove head-first into the airflow, took photos, laughed, emerged with messy hair and huge smiles. A line formed instantly.
That’s when we realized: this wasn’t decor — it was an emotion machine.
It produced a burst of abstract joy, simple and reliable.
WHY “IRRADIATOR”
We jokingly called it a “happiness machine,” but that felt too grand.
What it really did was irradiate people with a strange, uplifting energy — so the name IRRADIATOR became natural. It wasn’t about flames anymore; it was about exposure to joy.
AFTERLIFE
The Irradiator traveled widely, popping up in different cities — including a tour to Israel — where it continued irradiating unsuspecting humans with harmless, shimmering insanity.