Riso Rocket Lamp

When London-based artist Vitoria Bas started working with Riso printing, she was blown away and eternally grateful for the extremely open community around it. Learning how to use the machine on the job, she tells us “I was never met with gatekeeping or condescension from other studios when I got in contact with for much needed help figuring technical things out”. Instead, Vitoria was sucked into a close knit circle of sharing resources, tips, and parts, all of whom were determined to keep Risograph alive, colourful, and accessible to all. “I also quickly realised riso-people make a lot of work about risograph itself,” says the artist. So here’s another one for the pile – the Riso Rocket Lamp is Vitoria’s own humble contribution to the cult of the Risograph.

The project was created in collaboration with graphic designer Joe de Weijer and Riso print studio and publishers PageMasters. Vitoria comments; “Working as the Risograph technician in Central Saint Martins, I too fell victim to the problem that afflicts all Risograph studios and workshops: the pile of empty ink tubes sitting in a corner. With their sturdy retro-futuristic cylindrical shape and utilitarian visual language, everybody seems to have agreed that albeit completely useless for printing once they’re empty, they’re too good to discard. Recycling and upcycling are well aligned with the Risograph process with its biodegradable stencils and vegetable oil based inks, so it would be a lie to say I’m the first one to flip an ink tube (even the first one to make it into a lamp. But in my attempt to trick students into taking home some ink tubes from my pile, the Rocket Riso Lamp became a very special project.”

Inspired by the colourful and iconic Lava Lamp – coincidentally completing its 60th anniversary this year – and following the retro-futuristic cue from the tube’s design, Vitoria and Joe designed a simple, practical, inexpensive lamp base. One that the RISO ink tube could simply be plonked onto, and swapped over any time.

Designed to fit in a very specific place and work with concrete equipment, the Riso ink tube presented a problem of adaptation from the beginning. Vitoria states; “We had to conjure a creative solution to securely fasten the ink tube without any glue into a structure it was never supposed to interface with and fulfil a role it was never intended to get anywhere near.” She continues; “We started with identifying what we needed; a bulb to be able to fit in the openings already present, a secure base for the tube to fit onto, and to finish with a sleek result at the end. I got a few poorly measured tests cut out of acrylic at the 3D workshop in the college before I realised I was wasting expensive plastic and the technician’s precious time.” From there, Joe took over, and after taking meticulous measurements of the “open” end of the tube, he drew up a quick model in Fusion 360 and pushed it to his 3D printer (an Original Prusa MINI+) – a much cheaper way to test the pieces. The pair then started the next phase of the project; iterate, print, test, solve, repeat.

After several nights of drawing and 3D printing tests from Joe’s bedroom, and with the support of Jordan and Justin at PageMasters, they arrived at a 6-piece structure that can be assembled with no glue or screws. Vitoria comments; “Pagemasters essentially bankrolled me – they were very enthusiastic about sponsoring the lamp and bought all of the lamp parts, filament for the 3D printer, everything to make it happen. They were selling the 3D printed prototypes.”

The final lamp-base is recycled acrylic cast. In the spirit of recycling and reusing, the lamps are (re)packed in their own delivery boxes, re-claimed with a Riso printed fully recyclable sticker. It also includes a Riso printed assembly guide.

Vitoria concludes; “The way I would love this project to go forward is to eventually make the cut or 3D printable files available for anyone with spare ink tubes lying about and would like to accessorise a little bit – but as I found out that connecting a lamp cord to switch, plug, and bulb is slightly more complicated than I predicted, for now I’m happy with this first step – introducing the Rocket Riso Lamp to the world.”

Acrylic cut bases are available at here. 3D Printed bases are available from PageMasters.

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