EMERGING LIGHTS – SYNAXCAPE
UDIT Universidad de Diseño Innovación y Tecnología
Spain
From 12 to 14 March
From 5pm to midnight
Central de Diseño / Matadero Madrid. DIMAD (interior)
FREE ADMISSION UNTIL CAPACITY IS REACHED
EMERGING LIGHTS
The 2026 edition cements the Emerging Lights programme as a firm fixture at LuzMadrid, reinforcing its commitment to serving as a platform for promoting new creators and strengthening a collaborative ecosystem with some of the city’s top design schools. Thanks to the collaboration of the Madrid Designers Association (DIMAD), four of Madrid’s leading design institutions are taking part in the festival. Light as a creative, conceptual and technical material is the central theme of a training process developed during the first semester of the academic year by students from the Madrid School of Design (ESD), the University of Design, Innovation and Technology (UDIT), Istituto Europeo di Design (IED Madrid) and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), who are working to create site-specific pieces for Central de Diseño which will be part of the festival’s official programme. In Emerging Lights, LuzMadrid brings together education, cultural production and the city itself, providing students with a real-world framework for experimentation and exchange with other creators and forms of artistic expression.
This interactive installation brings body, light and architecture into a radical exchange with each other. Viewers interact with a central geometrical sculpture which resembles a neural network and is activated with light and sound based on their movements. Synaxcape is an installation that redefines the relationship between individual, collective and system, while serving as a metaphor for the relationships of the Anthropocene, diversity, structural crisis and the climate emergency.
*INSTALLATION SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR LUZMADRID 2026
UDIT is a private university based in Madrid specializing in design, innovation, and technology. Its educational model and the approach of its Bachelor’s Degree in Design and Product Development integrate creativity, critical thinking, and technical skills, with training geared towards practical application and connections to the professional field. Synaxcape was developed for LuzMadrid 2026 by a team comprised of students Ainhoa Pérez, Amelia González Ortiz, and Sara Madrid Antón, professors and researchers Pedro Cerisola and Javier F. Gorostiza, and in collaboration between UDIT and Estudio Cerisola.
UDIT – University of Design, Innovation and Technology in collaboration with Estudio Cerisola + Robita Lab
Academic Development and Tutoring:
Javier F. Gorostiza (UDIT Lecturer and Researcher · Principal Investigator, ROBITA-LAB)
Pedro Cerisola (Estudio Cerisola · UDIT Lecturer)
Academic Participation:
Ainhoa Pérez
Amelia González Ortiz
Sara Madrid Antón
(Students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Product Design, UDIT)
Conceptualization:
Pedro Cerisola
Javier F. Gorostiza
Structural Design:
Estudio Cerisola
Lighting Design, Programming, and Electronic Systems:
Javier F. Gorostiza
Academic Coordination:
Javier Sanz (Director of the Bachelor’s Degree in Product Design, UDIT)
Ainhoa Pérez
Location
Central de Diseño, run by the Madrid Designers Association (DIMAD), is a space devoted to the dissemination, research and promotion of contemporary design. The building that houses it, Nave 17 of Matadero Madrid, was part of the industrial complex originally designed in the early 20th century by Luis Bellido, and it retains the Neo-Mudéjar industrial architecture that distinguishes the entire site, with an open-plan structure and exposed brick.
Sponsor
With the collaboration of
