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Configuring Light

There seems to be a growing momentum within the lighting design industry towards a more thoughtful and considered practice, one that is more context and human conscious. Influenced by both external and internal forces such as new scientific research, greater public appreciation and technological developments, it appears as if lighting design is having its own postmodernist moment.     

Not to say that lighting design is not postmodernist already along with all the other creative fields, but the sense of accelerated change, deconstruction, assessment and critic that architecture or industrial design experienced mid-20th century seems to be happening particularly to lighting design at the moment.     

At an event hosted by illumni in Melbourne and Sydney aptly titled “Configuring Light, Staging The Social” this sentiment seemed to reach a critical mass. Mona Sloane and Don Slater from the London School of Economics presented their recent research project, Urban Lightscapes/ Social Nightscapes, that investigated the social significance of light as well as its nature as a material of the physical world we inhabit.     

There were some particularly interesting points raised during the presentation and discussion at the event. They further explored the concept of the role of light in society as well as the challenges faced by the profession and of research in the field to develop it further. There seems to be a current lack of social research in lighting, even though light is so pervasive and fundamental to experience. Research such as that conducted by Slater and Sloane, which was done in partnership with designers and delivered a number of design outcomes rather than just documentation, can really help community, government and practitioners redefine what is necessary and appropriate in the implementation of lighting in our cities and environments.     

It was a wonderful evening of ideas and questions and it's great to see architects, lighting designers, planers and researchers in one room trying to define the role of lighting in our lives.    

To read more about Slater and Sloane's work please visit: http://socialnightscapes.org/

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Authority, Society, Design and Sorai

Three things happened recently which were strangely intertwined. I began to question further the role of design in society, I visited Japan on a holiday for the second time, and I was given a text by Olivier Ansart about Ogyu Sorai as part of my postgraduate studies. The last thing seemed to bring them all together. I had to analyse the text and I thought I would share my insights.

Olivier Ansart’s essay “Rituals as Utopia: Ogyu Sorai’s Theory of Authority” is a very fascinating text, primarily due to its extensive insights into the interplay between authority, society and design. Ansart explores very effectively and succinctly the context within which Sorai existed and wrote about, the main arguments of Sorai’s work in relation to authority and social control, and the role of rituals and the manipulation of the body in achieving what Ansart claims as “Sorai’s utopia” [2009:33]. It is primarily significant however due to the indirect understandings it provides into the relationship of these ideas to modernity and the role of design.

Sorai lived and wrote at the centre of the Tokugawa period in Japan, but his teachings and perspectives on society highlight social issues and ideas that can be seen throughout world history.  Tokugawa Japan was a relatively long and peaceful period in Japanese history that had followed a period of extensive internal warfare between various feudal lords. At the start of this period the Tokugawa, recognising the destabilisation freer markets and trade had on their control of Japanese society, closed Japan’s borders and isolated the nation from the rest of the world. Foreign religions were banned and Buddhism was heavily encouraged [Laver, 2011]. This lack of an external introduction of newer ideas through trade and the avoidance of a mercantile elite helped Japan to avoid the huge social change Europe was experiencing at the same time.

However as is often the case with treatises, Sorai’s writings were written while the society he existed within was beginning to change and the social ideals it was structured upon were showing signs of weakness. Japan was becoming increasingly urbanised and was changing from its previous smaller communities. In face of this transformation Sorai drew conclusions as to what is the ideal society and how to achieve it. He wanted to explain a utopia where people cared for each other beyond what he saw around him, and where there was a minimisation of the use of force and persuasion [Ansart, 2009:34]. 

According to Arendt authority is the force which often drives people within a society to adhere and conform to certain principles and structures without the use of force or persuasion [1977]. In his interpretation Sorai recognised this potential of authority and saw it as the driving factor to achieve his utopia. His main proposition was that authority is manifested and strengthened by the formation and manipulation of culture, particularly the use of rituals of the body [Ansart, 2009:37]. Sorai believed that the shaping, the bending and the use of the body in particular forms, such as the way one dressed, talked, behaved and interacted with the world and all the paraphernalia one surrounded their body with, created rituals which people adhered to and replicated subconsciously.

This idea of rituals of the body and the representation and participation into the principles that governed a society was fundamental to Sorai’s ideas on the role of a unified social system. He asserted that unlike discourse, which attempted to make its participants understand, or force, which attempted to coerce its targets, rituals aimed for transformation. People only needed to partake in a ritual and by doing so replicated it and enforced it, driving its momentum [Ansart, 2009:38]. Further study of other premodern societies has shown this to be relevant universally, from tribal societies enforcing social order through manners of eating and drinking [Erikson, 1964], to industrially demanding societies which formalised social order through codes of etiquette and civility [Elias, 1994].

Nevertheless as successful as rituals would have been at the time, and as idealised as they were by Sorai, Ansart explains their utilisation to such an extent was practically impossible [2009:40]. To bring about complete social unity where the peasant would become the samurai’s retainer, where alienation and hostility between the classes would be absent, one needed to “seize, hold, grasp each body and plant it in a specific place from where escape is forbidden” [Ansart, 2009:41]. This meant that the roles of the stranger or the traveller would be eliminated, everyone would know everybody else in their community and would thus hold each other accountable enforcing rituals even further.

Furthermore the increasing urbanisation of Japan meant that not only was it logistically impossible to maintain small and closed communities, but maintaining the necessary familiarity between one’s neighbour was also impossible. Even though Sorai believed that people who know each other from birth care for each other more than strangers in a society ever could, Ansart explains that the very nature of urban life was a “life dominated by an anonymity where real identities are so easily hidden and ignored.” [2009:42], making Sorai’s utopia impossible.

Urbanisation and surging consumption due to the increased industrialisation of labour and resources where key factors to the modernisation of societies. People existed among strangers and could purchase their identity in ways previously unthought of. Even though modernity helped dismantle Sorai’s world, his teachings are still relevant. We still partake in rituals in our every day lives because we have been taught as children the correct way to do things, behave and dress, until we unquestioningly become participators and enforcers. We need these every day rituals as we cannot constantly be making what we consider to be trivial decisions.

Not only are rituals still prevalent in our times but design itself participates in the structure of society, in the direction and indication of authority and power, whether towards certain people or certain ideas. Bourdieu has described how modern societies are surrounded by homogenising images that impart authority [1977]. We as designers help to fashion these images. We help keep in place or undo certain principles and perspectives through the creation of what Sorai once called “rituals of the body”. We create the items people use and express themselves by, the worlds within which people exist and we project the ideas we are driven by onto them.

Regardless of the particular messages or ideas one gains from Sorai’s teachings, Ansart’s analysis explains very well that some of the fundamental issues he was dealing with were the role, use and nature of authority and its relationship with society, as well as its most effective implementation: rituals of the body. Both Sorai’s work and Ansart’s exploration are essential in gaining further understanding on the the interplay between society, authority and design.

References:

Ansart, Olivier, Rituals as Utopia: Ogyu Sorai’s Theory of Authority, Japanese Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, Routledge, May 2009

Laver, Michael S., The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony, Cambria Press, 2011

Arendt, Hannah, ‘What is Authority?’, in Between Past and Future. Penguin Books, 1977

Erikson, Erik H., Childhood and Society. Norton, 1964.

Elias Norbert, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, and State Formation and Civilization. Blackwell, 1994.

Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, 1977.

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Daylighting And St Moritz Church

I came across an article on dezeen.com a little while ago of a recently remodelled Church in Augsburg Germany by the name of St Moritz by John Pawson. It is a magnificent building, expertly finished and very well lit, I think the architecture studio has done an amazing job with it. I revisited the images the other day as there was something in them which at first viewing had made an impression on me but I had not fully recognised.

The interior of the building seemed to me at the time almost perfect and ethereal, but being such a large and white space that is used for worship, I refused to believe there was much done to change it. For this reason I decided to investigate what the building used to look like prior to the remodel. Below is the image of St Mortitz now (courtesy of dezeen.com and photographers Hufton + Crow).

Note the purity of it’s colour tones. The white is almost total with very subtle gradients and the windows seem to almost disappear, although this could very well be the time of day photographed and the exposure. The very dark wood creates a very solid base and grounding. Looking at this image you can imagine how one would feel a sense of being uplifted in such a space, which is very successful for a space intended to bring you closer to a deity.

The image above from WikiCommons is an amateur snap from 2005, It’s taken around 2:45pm in the Northern spring so the sun wouldn’t be at its zenith for the month but still relatively high. You can see the sunlight coming in from the high windows reflecting from the wall. Note the different colour scheme on the ceiling and the apse, as well as the statues in the main room.

The changes aren’t vast but I still think the visual language used before and after is quite different. There is less visual clutter and a stronger purity of form and essence in the current image. The apse also seems to be glowing in light – and so it should, as this is where the action happens. Artificial lighting is also very subtle and only used to highlight certain elements, such as the circular recesses in the ceiling. Generally where your eye is led to, where it stays and how you feel in my mind has been significantly improved considering this is a Protestant Church, the brief I imagine would have been screaming the words “pure, holy and uplifting”.

I looked a bit further and came across a Lighting Consulting company called Mindseye which was hired by the John Pawson Architecture studio to conduct a daylight study on the church prior to the remodel. They found that the apse was quite a lot darker than the rest of the space, and thus recommended the replacement of the stained glass windows with translucent onyx. You can see the difference.

This building is a perfect example of really fantastic use of daylighting in combination with finishes, colour and texture to really bring a space to life and make it feel special by giving it a stronger visual language. Light, especially light from the heavens (or the sky, which ever way you look at it), is often attributed to godly essences and this is no less true for Christianity. Humans love bathing in daylight and filling a room with it, particularly a church, can only heighten our appreciation of it.

courtesy of Dezeen for the original story, photographers Hufton and Crow who captured the current images and Mindseye for the extra information on the project:

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/15/st-moritz-church-john-pawson-photography-hufton-crow

http://www.mindseye3d.com/Project/Daylight-Study-St-Moritz-Church

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Pearl Rainbows

As a kid I used to think that a rainbow had been captured and embedded within some of my grandmother’s pearls (along with the bubbles I used to blow with dish soap). I used to turn them to see where the pattern of colour I was seeing originated from, assuming that the colour was a pattern on the object itself similar to my marbles. However I could never catch it and that fascinated me even more. Little did I know that what had indeed captivated me so much was a little magic trick with light that the pearls were playing with my eyes and my perception.

Sara Murphy with her defining pearls. Source: http://mylusciouslife.com/pictures-of-pearls-accessories-necklace-bracelets-earrings-rings/

Even though some people view pearls as gems (precious gemstones formed from inorganic minerals derived from the earth) because of their rarity and similar use, it is widely known that they are indeed created by living shelled molluscs. When a foreign particle, irritant or parasite enters a mollusc shell, the immune response of the mollusc is to slowly and gradually coat this foreign object with layer upon layer of calcium carbonate. This forms a structure around the object called the “nacre” (or “mother-of-pearl”) and is known specifically for its iridescent properties (an ability to show luminous colours that seem to change when seen from different angles). For a very long time the quality of pearls was purely based on how iridescent they appeared to be to a trained human eye. A purely subjective evaluation if you ask me.

Difference in pearl quality. On the left is a high quality pearl, while on the right is a low quality pearl. Note the green tinge and resonating change in colour on the high quality pearl caused by a play of light interference and diffraction. Source: http://www.nikon.com/about/technology/field/elsvis/index4.htm

Now the fun stuff. The real reason why this happens is because the translucent microscopic layers that form the nacre are in fact as thick as the wavelength of visible light, so light reflected from the outer surface is therefore able to interfere with light reflected from the inner surface. Diffraction also plays a huge role since it is also believed that the actual calcium carbonate layers are not straight sheets, but tiny little bricks stacked perfectly around each other. This causes tiny apertures for the light to pass through which at such a small scale actually spread the light beam and make its composition more visible (the rainbow effect). This in itself can cause interference as the spread beams interact with each other.

Now if you don’t think pearls are fairly brilliant, then I’m not sure what else I can say.

For some more information on colour and pearls check out: http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/15B.html

Also here is a great scientific study done on perception and mother-of-pearl: http://www.nikon.com/about/technology/field/elsvis/index4.htm

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Atoms and Light

I’ve been quite fascinated with the science behind how light works recently as it is an incredibly complex “field", and I thought it would be a nice idea to divulge some of those discoveries here.

To be honest with you I don’t believe the study of light really is its own field as it is so fundamental to all other fields of science, from particle physics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, chemistry etc. Light is energy. It is photons. It is a spectrum. It is much more than just a complicated aspect of our physical universe, as light can be magic, it can be art and beauty. Most importantly light helps us understand our world, whether you are a scientist or an artist, but you can see this directly though science.

Most of us have had some exposure to the fundamental principles of the science of light. We’ve played with glass lenses and used ultraviolet lamps, studied the sun and read about waves and atoms. I’m not going to go through all this as you can probably get better understandings from a year 9 science book, but I want to briefly talk about light and atoms.

Albert Einstein was a pioneer of our current understandings of light through his work in the early studies of quantum mechanics.

I’ve used and played around with a fair number of fluorescent light tubes such as the ones you’ll find in your standard office. It just so happens that I have one resting comfortably in a fitting in my kitchen shinning dull blue light on me late at night. I decided to change this tube the other day (It’s probably been in there for a number of years) and went and purchased a brand new OSRAM set of two tubes from the local hardware store, making sure that I got the 3000K ones (warm white) as I was tired of feeling like I was eating my dinner in someone’s garage.

While I was changing the tubes I realised that there was a flickering in the new tubes and the centre wasn’t emitting as much light as it should be. Which made me stop and think, “how do these things really work?". I mean I knew how they are different to incandescent light bulbs, they essentially fire a charge from one end of the tube to the other which creates light in the middle rather than heating up a coil, but how does this work physically? How is the light created and where does it come from?

In the most fundamental sense, light (electromagnetic radiation, or photons) is created by the excitement of an atom’s electrons. Electrons closer to the nucleus of an atom hold less energy than the electrons further away. When an atom gains energy via an effect (heat/radiation/collision) an electron is excited, pushed further away from the nucleus, then almost instantly drawn back to its original position. Since energy can only be transferred and not just “lost", when the electron reverts back to a lower energy state it sheds the extra energy in the form of photons (light).

Now stay with me and I’ll explain how this is relevant here. Fluorescent lamps emit light via the principles of fluorescence, which is where they receive their name from. This a type of photoluminescence (photoluminescence also being one of many types of luminescence) which centres around substances absorbing a shorter wavelength of electromagnetic radiation (such as ultraviolet) and then emitting it back in a longer wavelength (such as visible light).

The excitement of the argon gas particles inside the tube via the electric current and their reaction with the mercury cause a substantial amount of electromagnetic radiation primarily in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. Now ultraviolet is invisible to the human eye and hence fluorescent tubes would be useless if left as is, so this is where they get fascinating.

The visible light one sees emitted from fluorescent lamps is actually emitted from a Phosphor coating placed around on the inside of the glass. Phosphors are fluorescent substances which as stated before actually absorb shorter wavelengths and emit them in longer wavelengths. So essentially when you look at a fluorescent lamp the light you see is actually emitted by the coating on the glass and not the gas inside, little lone the electricity. It’s all dependant on one another of course, and hinges on the principles of energy transfer in particle physics, but the actual visible light that illuminates your room is coming from the coating.

To be honest with you I never got to install the new lamps I purchased as I couldn’t be bothered troubleshooting it further (I’m renting after all!), but I certainly did learn a whole lot more about what’s going on every time I flick that switch.

I think next time I’ll maybe look a bit further into how Phosphors actually work.

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Rogier van der Heide

A long while ago, around the time that the seeds for my passion in lighting were being tenderly sown by my lecturer, I was told of this talk on TED by prominent lighting architect Rogier van der Heide, a video which I must admit I never watched at the time. Funnily enough I stumbled across it the other night and came to a number of realisations I wanted to share with you.

Firstly the whole talk practically encapsulates my whole education in lighting design (I never finished the Masters, but I did complete 2/3rds of the compulsory units in Lighting). Not only were the basic principles of nature, physics, the human eye and perception I was taught covered in this 15 minute talk, but Rogier also strangely displayed a number of photographs my lecturer used time and time again as examples. I find it hard to believe that this is all a strange coincidence.

Rogier van der Heide smiling like the handsome Dutch that he is.

Secondly towards the end of the talk Rogier demonstrates LED technology and covers general applications of lighting, new advancements and the aesthetic and ergonomic benefits of good lighting design and technology. I believed Rogier was doing a great service to the lighting industry and to good design as a whole by doing a talk to raise awareness of what lighting design is and what it can do, but I was inspired to find out why he was making that talk at all. With a little investigation, primarily from his personal website and an interview I found with him, it became a little more apparent.

After a successful career in lighting design Rogier joined Philips as Vice President and Chief Design Officer of their Lighting Division in March 2010. Philips as I have mentioned in previous comments is actually placing significant focus on their lighting division by recently selling off their TV and entertainment divisions. As lighting begins to become a highly complex and advanced field, with an increased amount of research, design and innovation (example: OLEDs and their future applications), Philips has not only recognised the potential for profitability by becoming the go-to company in lighting, but also the importance of guiding all this innovation by a prominent lighting designer.

My initial response in realising this was thinking that Rogier had sold out and was now merely helping a manufacturer sell their products more effectively (hence why he was making this talk in October 2010, seven months after joining Philips). But this feeling was quickly washed away with some consideration of the benefits to such as move. Not only will this ensure that there is a well funded voice for good lighting design, but also that there is well funded research and innovation in important and effective ideas and technologies. I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time, but I do not think it happens seldom enough. It's similar to a concrete manufacturer hiring Frank Gehry to help them innovate their concrete products, to make them more sustainable, have more applications and to produce new and more advanced technologies based on the needs and principles of architects and the people they design for. Only good things can come out of it.

Actually Philips is pretty good at doing this, hiring prominent people to help them design better and not only encourage their products, but also drive the fields their products are associated with forward through awareness and proper innovation. I do have a better appreciation of the brand now.

I encourage you to watch that video and check out Rogier's previous and current work, pretty cool stuff.

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Yes I know it has been a while since the last post, but here is a follow up to the OLED technology that is emerging. Philips is really taking charge with its commercialisation, as you can see from the video.

The fantastic thing about OLEDs now is the drastic change they will have on how we use and perceive light sources. Eventually any object can be a light source as OLEDs allow for planes of light rather than points of light (every light source previous to this was a point light source as the video explains). Truly exciting stuff!

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OLEDs, the Future in Lighting?

Lighting, like computing and electronics, is an exponentially technologically advancing industry. Every year, month and even week, there is a new product released challenging the boundaries and methodologies of Lighting. It is almost impossible to keep up with trends and newly available products.

Most consumers of generic electrical lightbulbs, which is practically everyone in the developed world, have now (in the smallest essence) become aware of this with the transition to compact fluorescent lamps from the long established Tungsten light bulbs. Even though not every home has a compact fluorescent lamp installed, people are already looking into the future and claiming that LEDs (light-emitting diodes - a type of lamp that uses a semiconductor material to produce energy in the form of light) will eclipse compact fluorescents (that is when cost no longer outweighs benefits).

But even though the future is not yet upon us and LEDs are still a high end and not fully developed product, scientists and technology companies are heralding that the future of the future is OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes - very similar in function to LEDs, but instead using an organic semiconductor material). This technology is already employed in displays for many new TVs and portable devices, but there are already companies like Philips utilising it for purely lighting focused products. Here is a promotional video for the new Philips "Lumiblade":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viSE80NZL1s&feature=player_embedded 

LED technology - courtesy of Wikipedia

OELD structure

The technology is still in its infantile years and has many ways to go yet to eclipse any established or to be established technology, but the possibilities it offers, of thinner and more easily manipulated lighting elements, could transform Lighting practice more than any other single element since the invention of the incandescent light bulb in the 19th century.

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Sestosenso by Paul Cocksedge, Milan 2011

Among the many (mostly) interesting things to come out of Milan's Design fair this year was an installation by Paul Cocksedge. It was all funded by BMW and was essentially an elaborate advertisement for their new car (which I will not name to fuel this well oiled marketing machine further), but although I didn't see it first hand, I was very impressed by the idea and execution.

I'm guessing Paul's brief was to create an installation that would present this new vehicle as a mystical apparition. Rather than blatantly shovelling images at the participants he wanted to get them involved in the process of discovering it, and I wasn't surprised to see that the main way he did so was through clever use of light.

He took a simple room and installed some wall-washing luminaires that flooded the room with blue light, and within this space he placed a series of red tinted transparent lamps. 

'Sestosenso' by Paul Cocksedge for BMW and Flos - image by Mark Cocksedge

 When a visitor placed their head inside one of these lamps a previously hidden projection of the car driving around the room is revealed. It appears that the projectors are displaying an image that in a blue lit room it is impossible to distinguish, but when it is filtered through the medium of a red tinted shade it becomes apparent. It is a very interesting and simple in essence effect, another great example of how clever use of light can be incredibly effective and intriguing.

image by Mark Cocksedge

On that note, since we are talking about Paul Cocksedge, he has also done another fascinating installation incorporating lighting as the main feature a little while not long ago for the release of Sony's Bravia television. In this incredibly simple work he just used three projectors of three different colours, red, blue and green, and directed their light onto an opaque glass disk. Since the combination of those three colours results in white light, the glass disc was illuminated white. this effect was further enhanced by visitors passing through the work and blocking the light from any one of the projectors at different intervals, resulting in interesting colour mixing effects.

image courtesy of http://homeshoppingspy.wordpress.com/2009/01/

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IALD Kit Cuttle Talk: Rethinking Lighting

I know this is a rather overdue post, considering this talk happened over 2 months ago, but as they say better late than never!

I was very privileged back in August, to attend a talk given by Kit Cuttle to a small theatre filled with members of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD - http://www.iald.org/ ). Kit is a prominent lecturer and figure in the teaching of Lighting Design in Australia and New Zealand and the purpose of the talk was to raise awareness to the shifting perspective of appropriate architectural lighting.

Kit's main point was that Lighting Design standards and practice need to shift from the established electrical engineering regulations that have dominated the field for decades and move to creating designs that go along more with how the eye and human perception work.

Previously and unfortunately also still currently, standards and client expectations enforced by previous practice, push designers to apply lighting by how many lux the Horizontal Working Plane receives. The HWP is basically the plane that exists about office-table high and how you measure that is to place a light-meter facing up at the ceiling and measure the amount and intensity of the light that hits it. This however is not how we perceive space and how we naturally require our spaces to be lit so that we can work and live within them comfortably and efficiently.

I won't go into the details about all this as you can visit Kit's blog if you would like more, but most of what Kit talked about was fairly well known and understood by my fellow students and I, since what I believe is being taught currently in most modern comprehensive Lighting Design Courses is fairly close to that, however that doesn't mean that it is applied outside in the real world. What I found most interesting of what he said though was that when you stop treating lighting as has been done for decades, and view the whole design, its volume and materiality, and the way people engage and interact with it, then the space effectively becomes the luminaire. It's about how that space is lit, but also about how that space itself provides light for your eyes to see and for you to live and work.

If you are interested and would like to know more, I encourage you to visit Kit Cuttle's blog here: http://kit-lightflow.blogspot.com/

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Bulb Characteristics

I recently had to look at the different characteristics of the eight main types of bulbs used in various lighting applications. Ranging from Correlated Colour Temperature (CCT) and Colour Rendering Index (CRI) to Efficiency (or "Efficacy" as is the more appropriate technical term). The table with what I found follows below:

Some interesting characteristics, but it should be noted that CRI is beginning to be seen as an inadequate way to measure a bulb's colour rendering, since it is measure against incadescent bulbs and White LED's have been observed to have better colour rendering than what is attributed to them by their CRI rating. Also many of these technologies are undergoing continuous development, especially LED's, so these numbers are obviously most likely due to change.

Who knows though, If I do this table this time next year there might be another 3 or so types of bulbs added (such as organic LED's or Plasma lamps) and the stats of the current members of the list might be completely different! Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

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James Turrell

Don't ask me how, but I got lost in the twisting passages of the internet the other day and came across a truly fascinating blog by the California Institute of Technology, specifically from the Psychophysics Laboratory (a department that deals with and investigates the nature of seeing, perception and understanding our environment through visual stimuli, something which I have recently become increasingly interested in), which investigated and evaluated the significance of the works of James Turrell (an artist whom I recently touched on that works with light and space) from a scientific perspective, and uncovered some very interesting information that explains my fascination with him.

Spread, 2003, James Turrel

The Light Inside, 1999, James Turrell

The CalTech blog entry basically praised Turrell for his ability to allow the observers of his work to "see the act of seeing" and "realise the process of of perception itself" (statements which Turrell has himself made, thus clarifying his aims) through a series of initially simple, yet complex techniques that play upon subconscious neurophysiological techniques in the eye and brain. 

Some of the techniques and effects employed by Turrell and communicated in the blog are (I will try and expand on each one of them in detail in future entries):

- Inverse and reflective optics

- Dark adaptation

- Night myopia

- Elimination of cues for form and distance

- Interpolation and formation of surfaces by contour

- Propagation and leveling of colour

- Figureground segregation in relation to closing of contour

- Deprivation of natural perceptual cues and re-combination of them

- Ganzfeld technique

- Purkinje image

Sinsuke Shimojo argues that "it is an important function of visual perception to provide the observer with an interpretation of the retinal input that relates to the real world" and since there are many different possible real world interpretations on any particular retinal input which can cause ambiguity, "the essence of perception lies in solving this ambiguity". Thus when Turrell makes his observers question the normal processes of their visual perception system (which has caused them to have a number of illusions and ambiguous images) he also makes them realise and become aware of those processes themselves.

Turrell really is a master of light and space, but even more so a master in manipulating perception and the visual sciences.

for further reading please check out the caltech blog: http://neuro.caltech.edu/page/media/turrell/

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Skyspace!

There usually aren't many reasons that I would want to go to Canberra for an overnight trip, or many things that could get me to go, BUT James Turrell is definitely one of them.

James Turrell is a popular contemporary installation artist who is mainly concerned with light and space. Among his most famous works are the series of installations named "Skyspace" in which he usually creates an upward facing void in a space, and through an incredibly clever use of light he allows his visitors to experience the sky in a fascinatingly new way.

We are lucky to have one of these Skyspaces (labeled Within Without) outside our very own National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and I was fortunate enough to recently get a chance to go down there and experience first hand the awe that Turrell inspires.

The work lies right outside the Gallery's entrance, what appears to be a fortified bunker.

As you enter inside you are confronted by a large dome topped brick structure and as you travel around it you come to another entrance. It's an interesting use of a space-within-a-space because when you enter through the first entry point it feels like you are within a completely different environment within which this other structure exists. It allows you to leave the world you came from behind and experience this new one with more freedom.

Within this structure you sit on heated cast seating that lines the circular room and merely look up at the dome. Lining the walls, hidden from view are series of L.E.D.'s that are capable of emitting light in an incredibly diverse spectrum of colour.

At the centre of this dome is an open void that is parallel to the sky and has such fine edges that gives the illusion of the sky being painted onto the ceiling.

And here is where the magic happens. As you sit and stare at this gaping hole in the roof through the hours of twilight (around 5-6.30pm and 5.45-7am for when we visited on the 24th and 25th of May) the colour of the sky begins to change and with it the dome of the room is illuminated in various ways that create a multitude of optical illusions. I tried to capture a series of shots to illustrate this, but they don't even come close to illustrating the brilliance of the experience, since many of the illusions happen as the physical characteristics of the naked eye and prolonged observance play tricks on our ability to interpret what we see.

The whole experience takes about an hour or more and it is an extremely meditative process, since it is so gradual and slow that you are never startled by sudden colour or sudden changes, bur you rather become aware of the transformations and the brilliance of the light. Some of the illusions that take place which cannot be replicated through photographs are the the circle completely disappearing, its formation into a sphere with an appearance of weight and dimension, and the expansion of the void to almost be touching the outskirts of the dome.

However it is really a personal and subjective experience, it's about how you relate to what you see and what the colour and light evokes in you. But most importantly it's about discovering the brilliance of the world we inhabit and taking a bit of time out of our our day to appreciate it.

[phorophos-blog]

Perception and experience.

Or perhaps experience and perception? These two abstract concepts have run circles in my mind for an incalculable amount of time. They are obviously interrelated, since perception shapes and defines our experience and we require experiences (whether it be staring at a vase or taking part in an argument) to form a perception of them, but it’s usually the case that they are understood separately. They are not easy topics to discuss or sometimes even to completely consider, and their nature and definition has been argued in philosophical circles since ancient times, and perhaps always will be. They are however extremely important in understanding how we relate to our world, each other and even ourselves, and hence why I thought I’d try and slightly scratch the surface.

The nature of experience has perhaps been plaguing my mind longer than the nature of perception. I’ve always been curious in the way we, as cognitive human beings relate to and understand our world, how we are able to touch, smell hear or think of an entity, whether it be an object, an event or even an idea or a discussion, and henceforth draw particular elements from it that form a specific and very personal understanding and appreciation of said entity. Our ability to subconsciously compute a consistent barrage of experiences with an indeterminable quantity of varying and distinct entities, and then to piece all these experiences into one bigger picture that forms our experience with our world is absolutely fascinating. What’s even more fascinating is our ability to then analyse and interpret the nature of it all, not just feel it, but recognise the significance of feeling it, the nature of feeling it and what it means to us. Everyone’s experience is unique and personal, we may understand what it’s like to feel pain, see red, hear a loud noise or to think about murder, but what it feels to experience any one of those things is something completely relevant to the specific experience each one of us has and something that cannot be fully explained.

    The search for the nature of experience naturally led me, as I stated above, to question how it is that we do come to experience our world. There are many ways of explaining how it is that we do, but I find that perception plays a major role. It is through perception that we gain awareness and understanding from our environment in the form of experiences. Perception is not all about seeing and sensing, it’s about combining all previously acquired knowledge, memories and understandings of an entity, running them along preconceived expectations of it then experiencing it in our very own individual and personal way. Perception is in my opinion one of the reasons that experiences are so special and individual, so impossible to quantify and replicate between individuals.

Now the interesting thing is, and hence why I find art and design fascinating, that we are able to get inside the imaginary space created by people between their perception and their reality and influence the experience gained by adjusting the sensory information they receive and the form and manner that it’s received in. In turn their perception of that type of experience is forever altered as they have gained an unexpected or different experience with which they will influence their next experience, hence forever changing their world. However small, to be able to influence and literally change what the world is for any number of people, one or many, is a beautiful thing. 

[phorophos-blog]

Inspiring daylit spaces.

Daylight. We value it, we need it, we worship it. From beach revelers to office workers, we all appreciate daylight, even though we might not realise or admit it. It is a crucial element for many natural processes in our bodies and at many times affects how we feel and work and go on with our daily lives. Hence why great spaces are ones that understand the human need for good daylight and provide it in beautiful and effective ways.

Two such great spaces that I personally find inspiring and that have effectively drawn me to admire their architects for their incredible skill, are Koshino House in Ashiya, Kobe, Japan by Tadao Ando and Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, USA by Louis I. Kahn.

Koshino house is very interesting because like Tadao Ando's many works it is very minimalistic in it's design yet so abiding by the nature of light and the influence it can have on the way the building and its interiors are experienced. Ando obviously uses light as a building element, it emphasises and shapes the walls, and like I have noted in my previous post on Chiaroscuro, it creates a very beautiful sense of drama

The main living room in Koshino House, notice how ambient the left hand side wall is, almost as if it's a window, but in fact it is just cast concrete.

Another view of the living room. As the sun moves the shadows move up and along the wall, constantly evolving through the year.

The same element is repeated in another living room, this time it's a semi-circular wall and the effect is slightly different as the shadows become curved like the room itself.

The way he has been able to achieve this is very simple, not meaning easy, because the simplest things are usually the hardest to emulate. By not connecting the north facing walls with the ceiling but merely suspending it, he effectively created a vertical light-shelf that channels the light and washes the walls with it. The ceiling being the thickness that it is, and being at an appropriate distance below the top end point of the wall, the light reflects off the concrete and the source of light is not revealed to the observer.

The Kimbell Art museum too has gained mass acclaim due to it's very effective use of daylight throughout its interiors. Being a building aimed at exhibiting works of art, it was required to be careful with the exposure of said pieces of art to damaging levels of daylight. So architect Louis Kahn was able to masterfully channel sunlight into the space from the top and wash it all along the curved ceiling, giving it an incredibly ambient look without detracting attention from the works in the lower part of the galleries which are easily lit with spot lights.

As the light enters through an opening that runs all along the ceiling, it's reflected by the curved surface it meets and onto the curved ceiling very evenly.

The slit below the point that the wall meets the ceiling enhances the dimensionality of the wall and accentuates the ceiling.

Whatever the method and idea, any spaces that acknowledge day light as an important element in the way that people experience them and utilise it in an effective, clever and natural way, are indeed spaces that inspire awe and enhanced appreciation.

[phorophos-blog]

Our world manipulating light and light manipulating our world.

It is fascinating how much our world actually manipulates the travel, speed, consistency and appearance of light all around us. Taking into account the different effects created by the distortion of the natural travel of particles/waves that constitute light, such as refraction (the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed) or reflection (the change in direction of a wave so that it returns into the medium from which it originated), it is incredible to consider that the world that we inhabit manipulates the agency with which we experience it.

An interesting example that I came across recently that subtly portrays this was a cluster of candles in glass jars. We usually don't give examples such as this a second glance, since we are generally fairly accustomed to the properties of flames, glass, wax and how they manipulate light, which practically forms our perception of them.

To pick out what was particularly fascinating about his example pictured above, was the fact that refraction, reflection, transmission and scattering are present, but also affecting each other. The light emitted from the flames at the tips of the candles, is partly reflected by the glass, then refracted as it passes through it, then partly reflected back again as it hits the next piece of glass and so on and so forth, until it reaches the observer, at which point (especially if it originated from the furthest sources) it has been transmitted by the glass at varying amounts and become more faint. At the same time the light is also scattered at the top of the wax candles as the wax is not a reflective surface unless melted and liquid.

Now taking all these events into account and the fact that there are multiple light sources, when we look at the image again, the effects that light has created are quite incredible, yet since we are so accustomed to them, it is rare that we take a moment to really appreciate it. But, that does not mean that the wonderful phenomena of light don't subconsciously affect us.

[phorophos-blog]

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro, Horatio (2010)

Being the first entry, I thought Iʼd utilise the opportunity to delve a little in the manipulation of light to enhance or create a different perception of scenes, films, artworks and generally I guess human environments, one of my primary interests in the utility of lighting.

I aptly titled it Chiaroscuro because that is the definitive technique in visual arts.

Chiaroscuro: The treatment of light and shade in painting and drawing – An effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something – e.g. the chiaroscuro of cobbled streets [Oxford American Dictionaries].

The technique has been utilised as far back as the Ancient Greeks, popularised in the Renaissance by da Vinci and is still used to this day (experiencing an increased popularity in Film Noir particularly). Itʼs characterised by bold contrasts of light and dark and itʼs quite powerful because it allows artists, photographers and cinematographers to create a sense of volume, drama and to draw attention to particular elements in their work [eb.com].

A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp is put in place of the Sun - Joseph Wright of Derby (oil on canvas, ca. 1766)

However I am particularly fond of this technique, because when it is applied to architecture, such as in Koshino House by Tadao Ando, it directly influences human experience through the particular space. It requires a designer to not only have a clear understanding of the materials, structure and volume that constitute the space, but also be aware of the way light, both natural and artificial can influence those qualities and how to positively manipulate the effects to enhance the design and henceforth the experience a user might draw from it.

Koshino House, Ashiya, Tadao Ando (1984)