andrea mancuso’s chandelier draws from early
computer systems Andrea Mancuso’s LUMIAC is a kinetic chandelier that acts like an active existence, creating constant movement, reflection, and lighting. Set up within Nilufar’s historic venue on Via della Spiga during Milan Design Week 2026, the chandelier moves its robotic claws as if it’s alive.
Developed as a kinetic ceiling lamp, LUMIAC checks out the relationship between natural gesture and artificial thought. Its name, an acronym for Light System Mechanized Intelligence Device Computer, deliberately references MANIAC, one of the earliest self-governing computer systems developed during the 1950s. Through this connection, Mancuso places the job within the origins of computational thinking.
all images by Filippo Pincolini, unless specified otherwise lumiac is envisioned as a mechanical organism A cast aluminum structure extends outward through articulated arms that resemble bones branching from a spine, offering the object an almost physiological appearance. At the end of each arm, blown glass spheres give off a soft radiance, while motors embedded within the main core stimulate the structure through synchronized motion. A remote-control system collaborates dimming and motion at the same time, enabling the light to behave as part of the choreography.
Instead of staying static overhead, LUMIAC shifts, responds, and changes spatial understanding through motion, turning lighting into behavior and innovation into something unexpectedly expressive. For the designer and his research-based studio, the project reflects a wider design philosophy centered on the dialogue in between previous and future. ‘Design, for me, is a journey that bridges imagination and truth, where each project becomes a dialogue between the product and the immaterial, the historical and the modern,’ Andrea Mancuso shares.
LUMIAC changes the chandelier into a kinetic organism motivated by early computational systems installed at Nilufar during Milan Design Week 2026|image by Alejandro Ramirrez Orozco the chandelier moves through synchronized light and movement|image by Alejandro Ramirrez Orozco articulated aluminum arms extend outward like mechanical limbs stimulating the structure through choreographed motion the chandelier’s anatomical structure remembers bones branching external from a spinal column a remote-control gadget synchronizes the chandelier’s movement and dimming system a kinetic chandelier developed as a living device|image by Alejandro Ramirrez Orozco project details: name: LUMIAC Collection designer: Andrea Mancuso|@andreamancuso_studio