Living Jewellery: the photosynthetic necklace
This magnificent gold necklace is created from thousands of tiny faceted gold spheres incorporating twenty revolutionary transparent solar cell gems that emulate photosynthesis, the power of nature, through a magenta dye captured between crystal glass. These shining cells are intricately connected through micro tunnels in the gold frames to transfer the power generated to an intelligent microcircuit hidden in the gold flower that is the “gem” of the necklace.
The cells are so sensitive that they generate power even in the dimmest light. The electronics that trap the power produced allow a solid state lamp to pulse in tune with a rhythm selected by the wearer. Classically this rhythm can be the person’s heartbeat.
The story of Living Jewellery from Nove-Vicenza to Lausanne
Living Jewellery is the apex of artistic creation in the Rinascimento dell’Energia, the Energy Renaissance that marks the 21st century, 500 years after the Renaissance that swept Italy resulting in the great architectural creations, sculptures and artworks. Living Jewelley takes adornment by jewellery to a new dimension by bringing life to the jewel using elegant biomimetic technology.
Early in 2012, shortly after the founding of Energitismo, the dream that became Living Jewellery was envisioned by Claudia Bettiol. That dream was to create a work of art that would represent the linkage between the two rinascimenti, an opera that would combine the elegance of the 16th century technology, design and workmanship with today’s peak artisanship including the most exciting technologies of the current sustainability revolution.
Through linkages at Fiera Vicenza, the Energitismo team met Giampietro Zonta and Daniela Raccanello, the founders of D’orica. Giampietro is the father of a novel technique to make tiny hollow spheres of gold and facet them to create gold “diamonds” that reflect and refract the light.
Daniela’s designs incorporate thousands of these gold “diamonds” into jewellery that are embellished through a range of new pure gold colours, magenta, siena, black, yellow, green, violet and blue.
Together, Energitismo and D’orica conceived how biomimetic technology of photosynthesis could be blended with the D’orica art to create jewellery that not only shone from reflected light but could create light as a sign of the life force of the wearer. The first opera of Living Jewellery is the Living Necklace.
For more information about Living Jewellery, we invite you to visit Energitismo website.
