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KMLP

Italy
Installation
2015

View Related Exhibitions

Interni Fuorisalone 2015: Energy for Life

KMLP in Collaboration with Mario Nanni (Viabizzuno)

Milan, Italy
13 April 2015 - 20 May 2015

Katya Multiple Light Projectors originates from Stalin's organ (German: Stalinorgel), after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, prompted by the visual resemblance of the launch array to a church organ and the sound of the weapon's rocket motors. During WWII, concerns for secrecy kept their military designation from being known by the soldiers who operated them. They were called by code names such as Kostikov guns and marked by the letter K. The Red Army troops adopted a nickname from Mikhail Isakovsky's popular wartime song, "Katyusha", about a girl longing for her absent beloved, who has gone away on military service. Katyusha is the Russian equivalent of Katie, an endearing diminutive form of the name Katherine (Yekaterina, Katya, Katyusha). Katyusha batteries were often massed in very large numbers to create a shock effect on enemy forces. The distinctive howling sound of the rocket launching terrified the German troops and could be used for psychological warfare. The rocket's devastating destruction also helped to lower the morale of the German army. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired between 3,970 and 4,228 rockets, from light truck-mounts and single-rail man-portable launchers. Hamas has launched 122-mm Grad-type Katyusha rockets from the Gaza Strip against several cities in Israel. Some allege that the CIA bought Katyushas from the Egyptian military and supplied them to the Mujahideen (via Pakistan's ISI) during the Soviet Afghan war. Katya Multiple Light Projectors (Russian: Катю́ша; IPA: [kɐˈtʲuʂə] ) are a type of lighting artillery first built and fielded by the association of the Lebanese Architect Bernard Khoury and the lighting artist Mario Nanni for the 2015 Milan World Expo. Katya Multiple Light Projectors’ design is relatively simple, consisting of racks of parallel tubes on which fixtures are mounted, with a folding frame to raise the tubes to launch position. Each base supports a battery of 14 to 48 tubular projectors. The model includes the KMLP-82, KLMP-132, KLMP-300 with either conventional or halogen light bulbs. Katya Multiple Light Projectors are robust compared to conventional fixtures, but are easy to produce. Katya Multiple Light Projectors such as these deliver a devastating amount of light to a target area compared to conventional fixtures and are extremely effective in saturation lighting, but with lower accuracy and are particularly feared by well-behaved decorators. Katya Multiple Light Projectors are usually self-standing but can also be mounted on a rolling base. This mobility gives them another advantage: being able to deliver a large blow all at once, and then move before being located.