1. LIGHTMAPfrom beginning to end

3. LIGHTMAPfrom beginning to end
2011 2014

5. THE MACHINE
THE MAKING OF THE MACHINE
THE PRINTING
THE PRINT
{LIGHTMAP
The idea

7. january
december
In 2010 I discovered this diagram
about daylight saving time. Wat
took my attention was not the day-
light saving time itself, but the
clear image of the lengthening
and shorthening of the days dur-
ing one year.
I decided to rebuild this diagram
by means of real photographs of
the sky during one year...

9. From 31 December 2012
until 31 December 2013, I
would install a south-east
oriented camera on the
roof of M - Museum Leuven
Belgium. It would take one
photograph of the sky every
six minutes, day and night, a
whole year round. Click!

11. Every six minutes a ma-
chine in the Anticham-
bre of M - Museum would
print this picture in real
time on a tiny plastic
cube measuring 7 x 7 mm.

13. Every six minutes one photo-
graph would result in 240
pictures each day.

15. or 7200 pictures each month.

16. Or 87.600 each year

19. THE MACHINE
THE MAKING OF THE MACHINE
THE PRINTING
THE PRINT
{LIGHTMAP
The idea

20. The basis of the machine: a small
plastic block measuring 7 x 7 mm.

22. 87.600 of these white painted blocks are mounted on
the backside of the machine on 365 seperate metal rails.

24. One motor changes the printers horizontal position (days). a second motor trans-
ports the vertical blocks to the printer, which is positioned on top of the macine.

26. This is the printer head on top of the machine, and one row of blocks. It’s a
hacked desktop printer from 35 €. We replaced it once during the whole year.

28. Once printed, blocks glide down over the other side of
the rails, towards the front side of the machine.. tick!

31. THE MACHINE
THE MAKING OF THE MACHINE
THE PRINTING
THE PRINT
{LIGHTMAP
The idea

32. First work: welding and bending 1095 metal pieces
into the 365 strings. I had no idea what I had started

33. Mounting the first set of strings on the con-
struction. I felt like a giant guitar builder

34. First test prints

35. Wim Lemkens (engineer): Why am I doing this?

36. Don’t try to lasercut 87.600 plexi blocks

37. Because we are true scientists we needed verifica-
tion, so we tried it again with a bigger laser cut-
ter. Quod erat demonstrandum. Long live science!

38. Our plastic gold...

40. Filling one string with 240 blocks took 20 min-
utes. On my own this would take 121 hours of work...
I decided to call my friends, family and collegues.

41. On one day, 40 people mounted 87.600 blocks on to 365 strings...

42. Such a pity we had to paint
these beautiful 87.600 blocks

43. Painting them

44. 726 of these had to be
mounted to fix the strings.

45. another week of work...

46. The paint glued all blocks together.
wehadtodetachalltheblocksagain….

47. All people who were in one
way or another involved
in the production process.

49. THE MACHINE
THE MAKING OF THE MACHINE
THE PRINTING
THE PRINT
{LIGHTMAP
The idea

50. In the public anticham-
bre of M - Museum
a small cube falled down
every six minutes, and this
during one whole year.

53. THEMACHINE
THE MAKING OF THE MACHINE
THE PRINTING
THE PRINT
{LIGHTMAP
The idea

54. I dismantled the printer and all oth-
er electronic and mechanical stuff

56. I divided the installation into four parts.

58. I did some essential restauration and corrections

60. And ready.: Leuven April 2014.

63. A project from Ief Spincemaille.
Software programming: Wim Lemkens.
Assistant: Ciel Grommen.
Produced by Werktank and Group-T.
Thanks to all volunteers making
Lightmap possible.
www.iefspincemaille.com