From Light To Dark - Daylight, Illumination, and Gloom - Tim Edensor

F ROM L IG H T T O DA R K
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F ROM L IG H T
T O DA R K
Daylight, Illumination, and Gloom
Tim Edensor
University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis
London
Copyright 2017 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
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Contents
Introduction: Geographies of
L ig h t a n d D a r k vii
Part I. Light
1. Seeing with Landscape, Seeing with Light 3
2. Under the Dynamic Sky: Living and Creating
with Light 27
Part II. Illumination

3. Electric Desire: Lighting the Vernacular
and Illuminating Nostalgia 53
4. Caught in the Light: Power, Inequality,
and Illumination 81
5. Festivals of Illumination: Painting and
Playing with Light 109
6. Staging Atmosphere: Public Extravaganzas
and Domestic Designs 139
Part III. Dark

7. Nocturnes: Changing Meanings of Darkness 165
8. The Reenchantment of Darkness:
The Pleasures of Noir 189
C o n c l u s i o n : T h e N o v e l t y o f L ig h t
a n d t h e Va l u e o f D a r k n e s s 213
Acknowledgments 219
B ibli o g r a p h y 221
Index 241
Introduction Geographies of Light and Dark
T h e lig h t o f d a w n triggers birds to begin singing; as dusk draws in,

they head to where they roost. The brilliant daylight that saturates the salt
lakes of central Tunisia bakes the white sand into a sharp brilliance, caus-
ing eyes to squint. Nordic architects manipulate the light outside so that it
floods interior space, toning atmospheres and highlighting forms and tex-
tures. Astronomers seek the nocturnal cloudless skies found in dark sky
parks. Young children cower under bedclothes and fear the darker space
under the bed as the lights are turned off. People enter restaurants of total
gloom to sample the tastes of unseen food and interact with other diners
whom they cannot visually perceive. Police searchlights catch suspects in
the glare of the beam, causing them to run for cover of darkness or to sur-
render. The lurid illuminated advertisements of New York’s Times Square
compete for attention in a chaotic medley of light and color, luring tourists
and night-time revelers. Residents participate in processions around their
towns while carrying homemade lanterns on commemorative, convivial,
festive occasions, reinforcing a sense of place.
Light pervades the world, and when it is not light, darkness emerges and is
combated by electric illumination. The perception of luminous and gloomy
space is a key existential dimension of living in the world, of the experience
of space and time. Though patterns and rhythms of light and dark play
out differently according to geography, all sighted people directly perceive,
sense, and make meaning of the world in accordance with its qualities of
luminosity or murkiness. Despite this shared, all-pervasive human experi-
ence in which spaces appear radically different according to time, season,
and weather, social science investigation of daylight, darkness, and illumi-
nation is meager. This dearth is startling when we consider how meanings
are attributed to the luminous and dim qualities of place, how sunlight and
shadow condition the appearance of the landscape, influence the cultural
vii
viii Introduction
values attributed to darkness and light, and inform the different social
practices that are aligned with nightfall, dawn, and midday, for instance.
While there are several excellent historical accounts about the rise of illu-
mination and the changing historical uses and meanings of darkness, and
a few accounts of the relationship between light and art, and film studies
has long discussed the salience of lighting conditions to cinema, in geogra-
phy (my own subject) daylight, gloom, and illumination have rarely been
explored. This is extraordinary when we consider that the key objects of geo-
graphical analysis, space, place, and landscape, are thoroughly shaped by
the light or darkness that suffuses them. It is as if these geographical entities
were, by default, conceived as being washed in a neutral daylight rather
than being dynamically conditioned by vital light and dark.
The distinctions between light and dark utterly transform space, yet the
advent of electric light is an ordinary miracle that we no longer acknowl-
edge. In 2001 a clamor of indignation arose when Britain’s highest-profile
arts award, the Turner Prize, went to Martin Creed’s Work No. 227: The
lights going on and off. The prize, critics complained, rewarded work that
lacked any substance or skill other than an ability to outrage the public.
However, another interpretation focuses on how the work, an empty white
room in which a light is turned off and on every five seconds, brings out the
sheer sensory distinction between illuminated and unilluminated space,
revealing how electric light utterly transforms how a room is perceived and
apprehended. In this book, I explore this ignored dimension of everyday
life, along with the more spectacular transformations and characteristics
bestowed by light and dark.
This book explores how we might think about geographies of daylight,
artificial illumination, and darkness. To examine the complex configura-
tions through which these geographies have been conceptualized, experi-
enced, and practiced across time and space, I draw on disparate theoretical
perspectives. Yet though the overriding focus is on the geographies of light
and dark, it is necessary to draw on other disciplinary perspectives and
examples, especially because so little has been written on these subjects.
Crucial to my study is an awareness that light and dark have been
deployed, understood, and sensed in diverse ways in different historical eras
and contexts, and therefore possess none of the eternal, essential qualities
often attributed to them. By drawing on previous studies, I underpin a cen-
tral contention that such praxes emerge out of distinctive historical condi-
tions, are invariably contested, and are supplemented with alternative sub-
altern meanings and practices. I have also found it indispensable to explore
Introduction ix
various artistic engagements with darkness and light, revealing a med-

ley of insights that makes us attentive to differing qualities, perceptions,
and conceptions. By drawing on scholarly depictions of these works and
on my own interpretations, I use these artworks to augment and under-
line several key assertions. In addition, much of the discussion relies on
my own autoethnography, participant observation, and interviews, empir-
ical explorations that exemplify arguments. I also rely on archaeological,
architectural, and philosophical sources in composing the account. This
breadth means that certain chapters contain extensive reviews of perti-
nent literature, while others focus more on empirical studies; both inform
the broader arguments that I make. I cannot claim to have produced an
exhaustive account but hope that the work constitutes a firm basis for fur-
ther study and acts as a provocative incitement to advance theories of light
and dark. Six key themes resonate throughout the book.
First, light and dark are ubiquitous: they shape our everyday worlds.
They influence the unnoticed perceptions and sensations that inform our lay
knowledge of everyday space and influence the rhythms by which we orga-
nize individual routines and collectively synchronize our activities. These
habitual dimensions of life are difficult to identify precisely because they are
largely experienced unreflexively, but they anchor us in place, conditioning
how we feel, practice, and conceive of our quotidian environments.
Second, light and dark are saturated with cultural values and understand-
ings, from the cosmological to the moral, symbolic meanings that signify an
abundance of different qualities. These understandings are contested and
change over time and space. As ever-present qualities, light and dark are
integral environmental and material resources with which we make sense
of the world. Since they are always enmeshed within these popular signifi-
cations, there is little purchase in essentializing their qualities.
Third, the ways in which we see with light and dark also cannot be essen-
tialized, though perception seems “natural” to us: the senses do not provide
unmediated access to the world but are conditioned by the distinctly human
attributes of vision. These mechanics of seeing diverge widely from those
of nonhumans in multiple ways. Though what we see is enabled and con-
strained by our visual apparatus, the senses are also culturally informed.
We make sense of what we see according to culturally located values and
meanings mentioned above.
Fourth, it is essential to consider how light and dark have widely differing
effects on distinctive places and landscapes, intermingling with their mate-
rial and nonhuman qualities in complex ways. Geographical divergences
x Introduction
in the distribution of light and dark during diurnal cycles, seasons, and
weather conditions make a huge difference to how particular landscapes
are experienced. Other key factors in shaping the apprehension of place
include the intensity of light, the depth of darkness, and the qualities of the
surfaces on which light reflects, deflects, and is absorbed.
Fifth, this book is concerned with how humans deploy light and dark-
ness to shape space and place, and abundant examples are provided
throughout. Illumination is used to control, direct, and release bodies.
Light designers illuminate diverse places to aestheticize surroundings, pro-
duce atmospheres, and add layers of symbolic meaning, but most com-
monly to organize the everyday functioning of places, rendering them
legible and navigable. Illuminated installations charge space with festivity,
and artists use light and dark to convey powerful impressions and mean-
ings. Astronomers lobby for dark realms in which to view the starlit sky.
Architects manipulate natural light and shadow to condition building inte-
riors, and householders decorate their homes with lights that foster homely
ambiences. Most of these spaces and place-making practices are ordinary
and unremarked on, but they underpin how illumination underlies the
“distribution of the sensible” (Rancière 2004).
Finally, it is crucial to regard light as signifying not merely meaning but
what kindles feeling. The affective and emotional qualities of gloom and illu-
mination are profound, and though partly informed by the cultural ways in
which we interpret and sense space, the colors, intensities, and subtleties of
light and shadow condition and chime with our moods. The atmospheres
through which we continuously move are cooked by levels of darkness and
light, foregrounding their more than representational attributes. These
issues, among others, are addressed in the eight chapters that make up this
book. The first two chapters are concerned with daylight, the next four focus
on artificial illumination, and the final two concentrate on darkness.
Chapter 1 considers how we perceive the landscape with sunlight. In
moving away from passive, distant conceptions of the landscape as that
which is visually beheld by a detached observer, I focus on how daylight cir-
culates between the seer and the seen, facilitating vision and inflecting the
landscape with colors, shades, and intensities. To foreground this imbri-
cation of subject and object, I draw on artists who use light to interrogate
issues of perception, questioning how we experience color, time, and land-
scape. Subsequently, I explore the different levels of light and the key role of
the sky in contributing to the vital qualities of landscape and our distinc-
Introduction xi
tively human perceptual capacities. The chapter concludes by identifying

how mythical, moral, and religious perspectives make conceptual sense of
the play of sunlight, as well as considering diverse artistic attempts to rep-
resent light.
Chapter 2 extends this analysis by exploring how daylight shapes appre-
hension and understanding of particular landscapes. I first discuss how
our experience of light is typically unreflexive, since it occurs in the habit-
ual, mundane settings of everyday space and time yet nevertheless is a key
element of this familiar experience. I then examine how specific qualities
of light foster a sense of place and inspire distinctive artistic representa-
tions and cultural practices of place. Finally, I consider the creative ways in
which architects manipulate daylight to shape the sensuous, affective, and
symbolic qualities of interior spaces.
In chapter 3, I turn to artificial illumination. I discuss the radical trans-
formation from an overwhelmingly gloomy experience of night to the per-
vasive spread of gas and electric lighting, a world to which we are now
habituated. Yet though initially spellbinding, I contend that excessive,
standardized, and low-quality lighting is engendering a growing disen-
chantment with an overilluminated world. I explore the responses that this
dissatisfaction is provoking from light designers, planners, artists, and con-
sumers who are developing novel and inventive lighting practices that are
reenchanting spaces and places. This focuses on four creative processes,
namely, the development of more ecologically sustainable and responsive
technologies, the deployment of varied forms of place-specific lighting, the
persistence of vernacular lighting, and the reclamation and reconsidera-
tion of lighting previously considered outmoded.
In chapter 4, these optimistic tendencies are contrasted with a discus
sion about how illumination continues to be used by various kinds of
power. This underpins the central contention that lighting is inevitably sur-
rounded by contesting cultural values and identities. In investigating the
changing and multiple ways in which power is expressed and mobilized,
I identify four key themes. First, I explore how lighting is used in surveil-
ling, policing, and controlling space and people. Second, I investigate how
illumination reveals and inscribes various kinds of inequality on space.
Third, I discuss how cultural capital is mobilized to assert supposedly supe-
rior judgments around the aesthetic values of lighting. Fourth, I examine
how the normative arrangements of illumination exemplifies the power to
normalize the distribution of the sensible. To provide a snapshot of how
xii Introduction
contemporaneous power, resistance, and accommodation are expressed

through lighting, the chapter concludes with a focus on the installation of
a growing number of urban screens.
Chapter 5 further considers the positive potentialities offered by the
inventive deployment of illumination, investigating the creative works
produced by artists and designers at light festivals. These proliferating
events are emerging across the world at various scales, from local lantern
parades to extensive spectacles. I begin with a discussion of how light fes-
tivals might be analyzed as neoliberal, empty spectacles, yet I argue that
such assertions neglect how festive illumination can provide exciting, chal-
lenging experiences. More specifically, I identify four attributes of imagina-
tive festive installations and projections. First, I discuss how illumination
can defamiliarize space and place, productively disrupting social, sensual,
and perceptual habits. Second, I focus on how particular light applications
enhance a sense of place by conveying often overlooked historical and cul-
tural attributes. Third, I look at how lighting installations invite a play-
ful and convivial interactivity that transforms the habitual engagements
of locals and visitors with places. Finally, I examine how festivals serve as
temporary crucibles of experimentation by bringing together artists, tech-
nicians, and designers who share ideas and skills.
Chapter 6 explores how light can contribute to atmosphere—a quality
that we may recognize but is difficult to pin down. Following a theoretical
focus on how atmospheres might be conceived and the role that light can
play in their formation, I discuss how lighting professionals design differ-
ent kinds of atmospheres. I refer back to the consideration of light festi-
vals to emphasize that atmospheres are not only produced by those who
stage them but also by those who are caught up within them, who through
their responses help shape the ongoing emergence of atmospheres. I subse-
quently examine how lighting is deployed by householders to condition the
atmospheres in their homes in ways that reproduce shared practices or go
beyond lighting conventions.
Chapter 7 commences with a discussion about how darkness affected
everyday life in an era before extensive illumination, focusing on the dan-
gers it posed and how dominant Christian and Enlightenment conceptions
foregrounded negative qualities. I then draw on historical and contempo-
rary practices to exemplify how despite these negative connotations, dark-
ness has always also been understood as replete with positive attributes.
Indeed, nyctophobia has never been shared by all people; darkness has for-
Introduction xiii
ever been subject to contesting, multivalent understandings. The contin-

gent factors that produce these ambivalent responses are exemplified by a
discussion of the variable responses to blackouts and a look at the contem-
porary lure of darkness as a response to conditions of excessive illumina-
tion. The chapter concludes with an examination of how the relationship
between light and dark might be reconceptualized in a more-nuanced, pro-
gressive fashion.
Chapter 8 builds on the discussion in chapter 7 by confronting partial
and total gloom at a variety of sites. In identifying the complex effects of
darkness and the diverse sensations, affects, and social interactions it solic-
its, I explore walking through a crepuscular landscape, and driving, cycling,
and running through gloomy space. I then investigate a tourist attraction,
a restaurant, and a concert that are staged in complete darkness, and an
art happening that initially appears to occur in a totally dark room. The
exploration of these dark sites and events identifies how darkness stimu-
lates visual and nonvisual sensations. Darkness also reconfigures social
conviviality and intimacy, provides imaginative and conjectural encoun-
ters with space, and encourages greater openness toward difference.
The controversies about the uses to which illumination is put and the
revaluations of darkness discussed throughout this book signify that we
are on the threshold of a new lighting revolution. Modernist taken-for-
granted practices and understandings that underpin the hitherto unques-
tioned imperative to bring forth civilization, banish ignorance, and mar-
ginalize deviancy by swamping nocturnal space with light suddenly seem
somewhat quaint. Most evidently, the commonsense practice of washing
cities in light throughout the night makes no ecological sense. Moreover,
technical assertions that quantifiable measures of radiance, color, and dis-
tribution can determine the optimum provision of both daylight and illu-
mination are being contested by qualitative, inventive, and idiosyncratic
approaches to staging light. The proliferation of serial forms of lighting
that render places homogeneous after dark is being challenged by place-
specific illumination that takes account of historical, spatial, and cultural
particularities, innovations that transform feeling and meaning through
inventive design, temporary festive attractions, and durable art installa-
tions. As I have inferred above, darkness, which has typically been demon-
ized as the antithesis of enlightenment, is now being reappraised as that
which counteracts the overilluminated environments in which we dwell,
xiv Introduction
sought out as a positive quality that recharges and challenges our senses.
We are likely to live in environments marked by chiaroscuro, in a future
characterized by shadow and gloom as well as judicious illumination.
This momentum toward a more subtly illuminated future, toward a
far from brighter tomorrow, is being propelled by light designers, ecolo-
gists, planners, architects, city marketers, and politicians. And it is being
accompanied by a sudden scholarly awareness that light, dark, and illu-
mination, topics until now largely neglected by academics, provide a vast
area for research and theory. It is my fervent hope that this book will both
capture the progressive movement toward a more sustainable, diverse, and
aesthetically innovative lightscape and provide a point of embarcation and
an incentive to further intellectual explorations of daylight, illumination,
and darkness.
Let there be light—but let it be of good quality, and let it not be excessive.
And let there be dark.
Part I Light
Chapter 1 Seeing with Landscape,
Seeing with Light
F o r s ig h t e d p e o p l e , light shapes how they perceive, interpret, and

operate in the visible world. It is the medium with which they continuously
adapt, adjusting to qualities of brilliance, color, intensity, radiance, shade,
and gloom. Despite this centrality to human experience, however, light is a
form of radiant energy that is perceived less in itself than through how it
reflects, deflects, or is absorbed by the features and surfaces with which it
comes into contact and how our perceptual apparatus enables us to per-
ceive these phenomena. Thus the objects that we see possess varying hues
and intensities produced by the light that shines on them. Light is mediated
by various substances in the material world: being diffused by translucent
clouds, shining through transparent windows, reflecting off water, and
being absorbed by most other things, including the pigment cells of plants
that enable photosynthesis. However, our perception of these effects de-
pends on our distinctly human visual capacities. In comparison with other
animals, less light enters our eyes, and we are able to discern only parts of
the electromagnetic spectrum, yet we can perceive details under gloomy
conditions better than most other nonhuman creatures.
The entanglement of light and perception foregrounds the circulation
between the supposedly external and internal. Vision is facilitated when
the eye’s convex lens focuses light to produce an inverted image of a scene
on the retina. The iris expands and contracts in controlling the amount of
light admitted. The image is sent via the optic nerve to the brain, which pro-
cesses this information. Crucially, the brain controls selection of the infinite
elements in the field of view. The light-sensitive receptors on the retina are
of two kinds, cones and rods, and these respond to different wavelengths
of light and consequently produce two different modalities of vision. The
cones function when the eye has adapted to normal levels of (day)light,
3
4 Seeing with Landscape
allowing the experience of a color spectrum, whereas the rods operate

when there are low levels of light, and lack the ability to discern color.
This chapter explores how we perceive the landscape with light and
how this facilitates our engagement with it, practically but also in how we
understand and evaluate space. It is rather extraordinary that in geogra-
phy and other disciplines, the key role of light in theorizing landscape has
been almost entirely neglected. Older, post-structuralist studies focus on
symbolic qualities, reading the landscape as a text replete with power, cul-
tural meanings, and history; they rarely consider the symbolic role of light,
although painters have for centuries endeavored to capture the (changing)
light that falls across the landscape (Cosgrove 1984; Mitchell 1994). Such
studies generally explore only how the landscape is read as a cultural arti-
fact, not how it is seen or, indeed, how qualities of light are interpreted and
evaluated. Even in those works in which geographers focus on vision, light
gets little mention (Daniels 1993). More recent studies that adopt a non-
representational and phenomenological focus and swerve away from this
culturalist bias also only cursorily consider how light is central to embod-
ied experience, how it is that with which we see the landscape (Bender and
Winer 2001; Wylie 2007). I redress this theoretical lacuna by discussing
how daylight is an integral element of the vital landscape and how perceiv-
ing with the light that falls on landscape involves continuous attunement. I
emphasize the temporal qualities of perception and show how seeing with
light is always entangled with cultural conventions, refuting any sugges-
tion that the landscapes possess any essence or can be objectively discerned
by a detached observer.
To initiate an examination of the specific ways in which humans per-
ceive with and interpret light, I discuss two artworks that reveal our visual
particularities. This discussion undercuts any suggestion that the ways in
which we see with light provides unmediated access to the reality of the
world. First, I explore the visual experience and interpretation of color
in an encounter with Carlos Cruz-Diez’s Chromosaturation, and second, I
investigate the transformative effects on vision perpetrated by Olafur Elias-
son’s manipulation of light and water in Model for a Timeless Garden, and
how this interrogates aesthetic conventions.
As Diana Young (2006, 173) submits, colors “animate things in a vari-
ety of ways, evoking space, emitting brilliance, endowing things with an
aura of energy or light” and can be combined to “create a medley of affec-
tive and sensual impressions, camouflage objects, and produce synaes-
thetic effects.” Cruz-Diez (2009, 134), a Venezuelan artist, presents color
Seeing with Landscape 5
as “a situation happening in space,” focusing on color, aesthetics, and per-

ception, eschewing any representational context to explore the viewer’s
emotional and perceptual responses. Chromosaturation, featured at the
Hayward Gallery’s Light Show in 2013 in London, consists of three large,
interconnected chambers, each suffused with a monochrome hue, purely
blue, green, and red light courtesy of fluorescent tube lights with colored
filters. The experience of such singular saturated colors is entirely unfamil-
iar, for we are unused to perceiving settings in which only one color exists,
most spaces being composed out of multiple shades and hues. Here, color
assumes a solid materiality as it fills the bare rooms. Visitors are immersed
in a single, luminous, three-dimensional color field in which floor, walls,
and ceiling meld in one pulsating, all-encompassing hue that pervades all
scales of visual apprehension. Accordingly, in these unstructured, undiffer-
entiated color fields, the eye is troubled, finding it difficult to focus on any-
thing while also straining from the glare. The retina is especially shocked
when it moves into a chamber of a different color from the one left behind.
This utter unfamiliarity with the spaces in Chromosaturation causes the
visual system to adapt involuntarily: after several seconds of blinking at
the overwhelming monochrome, the room slowly turns a paler version of
red, blue, or green—to pink, sky blue, or light green. At first, the impres-
sion is that this transformation in the light is being manipulated; however,
it is the observer who is moderating the color in order to see with it more
comfortably. Disconcertingly, no matter how hard one may concentrate,
it proves impossible to prevent this visual adaptation. Following this men-
tal, ocular adjustment, a movement from one room to another once more
repeats the sensation of being enveloped by an overwhelming hue, where-
upon the visual system again amends perception and modifies the color.
The work thus makes us vividly aware of the processes through which we
receive light and interpret the color that we experience. If our perceptual
apparatus is able to change what colors we experience at firsthand, then
what in our vision is reliable? Can we be sure that what we are seeing is the
“right” color, or is our brain playing tricks on us?
In destabilizing our sense of color perception, Cruz-Diez challenges the
unreflexive ways in which we apprehend the world and foregrounds the
particular human qualities of vision. For our perception of color does not
constitute an objective recognition of what is out there; it is a subjective
process through which the brain makes sense of the stimuli produced by
light as it enters the eye and reacts with various kinds of cone cells. Appre-
hension of color, then, is forged through the relationship between living
creatures and their environments; for humans specifically, through our

relationship to light and the things that it animates for us. Colors do not
exist independently but “are relational, rather than intrinsic,” a product of
both the electromagnetic spectrum and visual perception (Beveridge 2000,
312). Crucially, humans see colors differently from each other. This is most
obviously the case with the color-blind but also for those who dwell in par-
ticular environments that shape subjective color perception. Moreover, the
same color next to other colors can appear dissimilar, and the appearance
of a color can vary according to the hue of its background.
Chromosaturation reminds us that as well as seeing the world through
symbolic and cognitive meanings, this partial experience of color draws
attention to the particularities of human vision. Although they cannot be
sure, color scientists suggest that cats and dogs are unable to distinguish as
broad a spectrum of colors as humans, while fish and reptiles can probably
see a greater range of hues, and many nocturnal creatures have little need
of color vision. The sensual and perceptual life of the dog, bird, or insect is
beyond our comprehension, for even if we can manage to understand the
mechanics of animal optics, we cannot know how an animal’s visual appa-
ratus interprets what it sees.
The illusionary and destabilizing effects on vision offered up by Cruz-
Diez chime with the work of op artists such as Bridget Riley, Richard
Anuszkiewicz, and Victor Vasarely. According to Simon Rycroft, these art-
ists deploy light in ways that resonate with contemporary concerns to fore-
ground the vitality of the material world, a key issue in considering how we
see landscape with light. Like Cruz-Diez, these artists move away from rep-
resentational forms: for them, “ideas and relationships figure more promi-
nently than schematic representations of nature and landscape” (Rycroft
2012, 455). In exploring fields of dynamic energies and their effects on
perception, Rycroft considers how the meanings and feelings of such pieces
emerged “in the space-time between and in conjunction with the embodied
viewer-participant and were at once a psychic, physical and haptic experi-
ence” (456). In Chromosaturation, the experience of light and color simi-
larly foregrounds their dynamic qualities and how these energies interact
with our own vital responses, producing physical responses to the over-
whelming color saturation and subsequent adaptation. This foregrounds
the temporalities through which we see and through which light continu
ously changes. As Cruz-Diez (2009, 11–15) asserts, the perception of color
“highlights space, ambiguousness and ephemeral and unstable condi-
tions” that is “conditioned to the fortuitous circumstances of light.” The
light that generates color perception endlessly fluctuates, while vision, too,
is an emergent capacity. Accordingly, the color and light we encounter are
continuously subject to reattunement and temporal effects such as retinal
fatigue, vibration, and afterimage. Color is thus a continuously changing
event, and Chromosaturation works through this unfolding process. Rycroft
(2005, 355) also considers how the op art of the 1960s was “a genera-
tor of perceptual responses, possessing a dynamic quality which provoked
illusory images and sensations in the spectator, thus bringing into doubt
the ‘normal processes of seeing’ ” and focusing attention on the perceptual
capacities of human vision.
As Young (2006, 174) contends, purely scientific conceptions that con-
strue the experience of color as a mechanical or psychological response and
regard colors as purely objective qualities eschew “the emotion and desire,
the sensuality and danger, and hence the expressive potential that colours
possess.” Responses to color are also invariably loaded with symbolic mean-
ings that vary across cultures. Even though there are no obvious repre-
sentational elements in the work, nothing to evoke any evident meaning,
Chromosaturation provokes emotional and affective responses. The vibrant
colors evoke different, indescribable moods as they suffuse vision and tint
skin and clothes. As Tim Ingold (2016, 229) avers, “As a phenomenon of
light, colour lends a particular affectivity to the sensible world: an aura that
overwhelms the consciousness of those who come under its influence.” The
red, green, and blue experienced in these separate chambers solicit diverse
moods in their initially vibrant state, and in their altered, paler version. Blue
may be associated with melancholy, green with arboreal calmness, and red
with passion or the sacred. Whatever the individual responses to these col-
ors, evident in how some visitors recoil from certain hues and linger in par-
ticular chambers, the work underscores how the ongoing perception of light
in the world is entangled with affect and emotion.
Like Cruz-Diez, Eliasson is concerned with dematerializing the art object
by deploying light, water, or mist and diffusing these elements in space
to explore the perception of the onlooker. He also enjoins us to question
how we perceive, intervening in our usual unreflexive sensing of the world
by diverging from the conventions through and by which we see, thereby
revealing the norms of vision. His compelling Model for a Timeless Garden
(2011) was also part of the Hayward Gallery’s Light Show, but solicited a
different range of ideas about sensation and light, and possessed a differ-
ent affective charge than Chromosaturation. Visitors walk into an otherwise
dark room to see a long table at waist height supporting twenty-seven small
fountains of varying flow and height, a strobe light pulsing to freeze-frame

them. The water, usually experienced as continuous flow under ordinary
light conditions, is radically transformed into lines of movement composed
of diamonds and jewels, suspended in midflow, facilitating a unique per-
ception of water beyond the usual human visual capacities. As the art-
ist explains, the effect is to “freeze something that usually our eye and
brain would see in motion, so the film through which we see the world is
cut into small sections” (quoted in Phaidon 2013). This dissection of the
visual world into discrete moments by the strobe seems especially peculiar
because the continuous flow of its sound is not matched by the usual visual
apprehension of running water, juxtaposing different sensory apprehen-
sions of the same thing.
This auditory-visual mismatch draws attention to how we see according
to the temporal constraints imposed by our visual system. As Roy Sorensen
(2004) details, when we watch a movie, anything below a speed of sixteen
frames per second can cause the apprehension of flashing images rather
than a continuous flow. The low threshold of visual persistence among
humans means that we can see a film—usually operated at twenty-four
frames a second—as a continuous flow, although other animals, such as a
bee, would perceive the separateness of each frame. Likewise, the twenty-
four frames per second would appear like a slide presentation to a pigeon,
which would require at least seventy-five frames per second to create the
illusion of movement on-screen. The thirteenth-century Japanese Zen
Buddhist teacher Dōgen expounded on how “seeing mountains and waters
has differences depending on the species. That is to say, there are those who
see water as jewel necklaces . . . their jewel necklaces we see as water. There
are those who see water as beautiful flowers” (quoted in Saito 2008, 158).
The unfamiliar perception of flowing water created through the deploy-
ment of light in Timeless Garden might similarly cause us to question how
other creatures visually perceive water—whether they apprehend it as an
ongoing flow as we do or can perceive the separate drops made evident in
Eliasson’s display.
The hushed gasps and exclamations of visitors entering the room cap-
tures their stunned response to the diverse formations produced by the
intermittently arrested flow of water. The flashing light, the dark setting,
and the mesmerizing fountains induce quiet, a focused absorption, and
slower physical movements that collectively constitute a shared multi
sensual space. In encountering Timeless Garden, we wonder whether other
visitors are seeing the fountains as we see them. Viewing the work is thus
Figure 1. Olafur Eliasson: Model for a Timeless Garden, part of The Light Show, Hayward Gallery,
London, 2011. Strobe lights freeze the flow of water, providing an impression of jewels. In
transforming the usual visual experience of moving water, the work foregrounds awareness of
the specific ways in which humans perceive with light. Photograph taken by and courtesy of
Elettra Bordonaro.
an irreducibly social experience, and sharing in the glee decenters the self
from the experience, yet all the same, we try to make sense of our own
perception.
Through producing an experience in which our expectations based on
our previous perceptual experience are confounded, Eliasson’s installa-
tion suggests that the boundary between reality and illusion is less clear
than we envisage. He also reveals the limits and partiality of our vision.
Yet the work also offers an alternative way to visually perceive the world,
a way to see that might be akin to that of another creature. As Madeleine
Grynsztejn (2007, 17) writes, “In promoting a kind of awareness of con-
ventions of seeing, Eliasson’s work encourages a critical attitude toward
normative processes of perception while at the same time offering viewers
opportunities to expand their ability to envision.”
The collective absorption of onlookers, transfixed as they gaze on the
frozen droplets, also addresses the cultural values that are inevitably part
of the experience of light. The elements that Eliasson uses in his art—
light, air, and water—are those that contribute to a sense of the sublime,
for instance, in landscape painting and nature tourism. These elements are
reassembled in the gallery and act to produce a scene charged with mys-
tery and magic. In Timeless Garden, light perhaps evokes the effects that
render one mesmerized by a glittering waterfall or bubbling stream, the
bright shimmer of sunlight on a body of water or the burst of rays through
a dark cloud. Yet as with most of Eliasson’s work, there is no attempt to
camouflage the techniques by which light is rendered sublime, for visi-
tors can clearly see the working of the strobe light and the mechanically
induced fountains, unlike the occurrences of the sublime in the “natural”
world. Eliasson’s recontextualizations of natural elements to create rain-
bows, suns, fountains, and mists confuse us about our conventional appre
hensions and representations of nature, for even though these elements
are staged through evident technological means, the power of the work is
not diminished and the sublime can nonetheless be experienced. Accord-
ingly, besides spellbinding visitors with light and water, the artist also suc-
ceeds in soliciting an awareness about how we construe symbolic mean-
ings in response to these effects.
Seeing the Vital Landscape with Light

In discussing these two works of art, I have identified several aspects of per-
ceiving landscape with light that introduce some key issues. I have empha-
sized the temporality of vision and how we use the shifting availability of
light to continuously become attuned to space, movement, and color. I have
exemplified the specific aptitudes and constraints of our visual system that
provide a highly partial way of seeing with light. And I have inferred that
vision is always inextricably entangled with the cultural and historical con-
ventions through which we interpret what we see.
A further issue that emerges through the above discussion concerns the
ways in which light circulates between the interior and exterior, blurring
the division between seer and seen, between viewing subject and object per-
ceived. This lack of separation between internal and external is inferred by
John Wylie (2006), who insists that landscape constitutes neither object
nor subject but blends distinctions between the looked on and the onlooker.
As we apprehend landscape, we are immersed in the currents and ener-
gies of a world-in-formation. Plunged into light, weather, and earthliness,
any sense that we are embodied entities separate from the landscape is
deceptive, despite the persistence of conventions of cultural representa-
tion and the persistent norms about how to look on landscape and assess,
understand, and characterize it. Both human bodies and landscapes con-
tinuously emerge, partly through their continuous interaction with each
other (Morris 2011). As creatures within this unfolding world, landscape
thus constitutes “the materialities and sensibilities with which we see” and
sense in nonvisual ways (Rose and Wylie 2006, 478). Rather than consider
landscape through an outmoded “static pictorialism,” we see with the light
that falls on the landscape and circulates through our visual system (Saito
2008). We see with the landscape as part of our habituated way of being in
place, and we see with the ever-changing light that falls on the landscape.
A focus on the dynamism of light in the landscape foregrounds one
aspect of the ways in which landscapes are never preformed but are “always
in process . . . tensioned, always in movement, always in making,” vitally
immanent and emergent (Bender 2001, 3; see also Wylie 2007; Benedickt-
sen and Lund 2010). Landscape is alive with energies, eternally fluid, its
rocks, earth, vegetation, and climate continually undergoing change, as
elements from near and far are entangled and folded together in a con-
tinual making. Rather than static notions that suggest intrinsic being and
permanence, landscape seethes with multiple rhythms and temporalities,
as elements within it are continuously becoming, emerging, dying, and
transforming (Edensor 2011). The limitations of our sensorium mean that
humans can perceive but a fraction of these emergent processes: microbial
and micro-chemical interactions in the air and water, within the insides
of living things and underground, are imperceptible, and many processes
take place too slowly for us to perceive, though we may acknowledge the
outcomes. As John Daniel (2008, 28) notes, “The real action” takes place
in “the vast sectors of the unseen.” In a forest these invisible multiple agen-
cies include “the miles of fungal filaments in any ounce or two of forest soil,
the prodigious traffic of food and fluids travelling the xylem and phloem of
trees, the manifold borings and chewings and excretings of countless hid-
den insects” (28), the activities of bacteria, the seepage of groundwater,
and tectonic uplift.
Light plays a crucial part in this unseen vitality, as it triggers chlorophyll
and causes plants to take in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Water is
drawn up by the sun through the capillary tubes of trees and descends back
to earth, as the “breath of the forest” reverses and “a myriad of beings” con-
sume oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide (Kimmerer 2008, 170). We see the
outcomes of the energy bestowed on the Earth by living things that grow or
withdraw when the light is plentiful, in the greening of the world in spring
as photosynthesis accelerates, and in the flowers that bloom as the sun’s

rays hit the Earth and in other plants that seek shadowy places away from
glare. A look at the shape of the trees in a wood reveals that each negotiates
an individual path as it grows to establish a position where it can obtain
the greatest quantity of light. Yet though light is central to life on Earth,
other creatures and plants prosper in the dark, for the nocturnal landscape
also seethes with life, as animals come out to hunt or move out of the lairs
from which they have escaped becoming daylight prey. Indeed, darkness is
a requirement for growth and sustenance for living things. And in the dark,
certain creatures generate their own forms of light through biolumines-
cence, such as deep-sea fish, glow worms, and fireflies. This light-induced
dynamism contributes to how never-quiescent landscapes “coalesce and
disassemble into different arrangements,” an endless transition that invari-
ably produces “a temporally and spatially textured mosaic” that testifies
to different continuities and durabilities as well as volatile becomings and
short-lived events (van Dyke 2013, 408–9).
Strikingly, however, despite this emergent vitality, we largely continue to
make sense of landscape by identifying the look of the land, its shape and
form, instead of focusing on its “substance,” its textures and its feel, quali-
ties that herald its liveliness (Ingold 2011, 133). We can hear the vitality of
the landscape in the breezes and raindrops that assail our faces, the sounds
of water and wind, and the smells of decay and growth, yet the most evi-
dent agent of vitality is light that pervades the land and sky. The tempo-
ral flow of seeing that responds to the ever-changing light that falls on the
landscape foregrounds our perception of these vital qualities, yet despite
this, the reification of particular landscapes persists in popular cultural
representations and understandings.
The most immediate evidence of the vitality of the light and landscape is
in the changing hue and quality of the “sky-in-formation.” This dynamic,
ever-changing play of light follows different temporalities (Ingold 2011).
These can be momentary, as when clouds scud across the sky and the tones
of the landscape swiftly oscillate or unsettled weather produces vibrant
fluctuations between brightness and shade. They more predictably accord
with the diurnal passage of the Earth as the golden hour of dawn initiates
daylight and the blue hour of twilight heralds its end, or follow seasonal
variations throughout the year, most dramatically at the poles, where there
are starkly contrasting variations between the pervasive light of summer
and the enveloping gloom of winter.
In discussing visual perception, Alphonso Lingis (1998) identifies how
changing “levels” of light, characterized by depth of field and brightness,

continuously play across space, forming a realm in which we see things
and with which we continuously adjust. When we walk out into the morn-
ing, the light may encompass an expanse of landscape that makes us blink,
but as we become attuned to the brightness, this luminosity conditions how
we see. These inflections of tone, shade, and intensity draw us in, luring our
gaze toward particular colors, patches of light or areas of shadow, and this
continually diverges as shifting patterns of light and dark trigger (re)attune
ment, subsequently focusing visual attention toward other objects. Lingis
uses the example of a red rose in a hospital room to display its chromatic
relationality, how it plays across the space texturally and in its hues, inten-
sifying the whites of the sheets and greens of leaves, and drawing the gaze
toward it. Light thus engenders continuous attunement, provoking affec-
tive and emotional resonances in the sensing body, cajoling it into move-
ment, activating passions, instigating sensual pleasures and discomforts.
In the vital landscape, light brings into play everything it touches, spo-
radically reorganizing the relationships between things. Consider a verdant
hedge snaking across a hilly pastoral scene. Depending on the levels of the
light with which we see, this may form a singular black line at twilight, a
rich linear sequence of multiple hues of green in the afternoon sun, or cast
a thick, spreading shadow as the sun sets. In a similar fashion to Lingis,
Gernot Böhme (1993, 121) uses the shadow of a blue cup to contend that
this does not simply spread darkness across space but also spreads blueness,
calling the process whereby objects tincture each other “ecstatic.” The ways
in which a thing casts its color or dapples of light on surrounding surfaces
and other objects specifies in more detail how levels of light produce recon-
figured relationships across space, effects to which we respond and become
attuned. This draws attention to another quality of landscapes in blurring
the divisions between things. The landscape contains innumerable mate-
rial entities, and the vital dynamism that inheres in all space is always lia-
ble to break the distinctions between these apparently discrete things over
multiple timescales. Rocks crumble to dust, water evaporates into air, and
plants decay into the soil. Similarly, the effects of light on things can recon-
figure their relationships so that they cast their color and light across each
other, gather in the color of other things, or become subsumed within a
field of shade, brilliant glare, or color (see Bille and Sørensen, in press).
Two further characteristics of seeing with landscape and light must also
be acknowledged. First, it is crucial to recognize that vision is invariably
entangled with nonvisual apprehension, for instance, through a tactile
gaze that provokes intimations of texture and temperature without directly

sensing them. Cathryn Vasseleau (1998, 13) insists that “tactility is an
essential aspect of light’s texture . . . to the feeling of a fabric to the touch,
or the grasping of its qualities.” Thus when confronting a landscape, a hap-
tic or tactile vision continuously emerges, offering the potential for engag-
ing with what we see through touch (Marks 2002). Whether nearby or
far away, we imaginatively throw ourselves out into scenes that through
sight we are able to empathetically connect with, through memories of
textures, shades, forms, and surfaces that were once sensed haptically and
kinesthetically.
Second, Wylie (2006) foregrounds depth as an existential condition for
our visual apprehension of the world, providing another facet of the light
with which we see. A sense of depth shapes the distinctive planes, angles,
and densities that facilitate the experience of differentiation within the land-
scape. Accordingly, seeing with the landscape involves different modes of
looking within shifting fields of varying depth—as we alternately gaze on
vistas, attend to obstacles in our path, glaze over in distraction, or scrutinize
nearby details, as scenes unfold incessantly, and as light levels change and
bodies attune. In exemplifying the shifting ways in which we encounter light
in terms of its changing levels and fields of varying depth, Lingis details how
he comes across lichens in a wood. He engages with this micro-landscape as
light levels shift and depth varies by continuously reattuning to the scene, his
gaze successively homing in on and moving away from the lichens and the
bejewelled dewdrops that rest on them (Lingis 1998, 12). To explore further
the ways in which levels of light and encounters with varying depths pro-
duce distinctive experiences of landscape, I describe a walk I undertook in the
midst of the Gargunnock Hills, west of Stirling, Scotland.
Few people come to the Hole of Sneath. Precipitous, dank, moss-covered
sandstone cliffs block off the sunlight in the gorge, closing in to the point
where a forty-foot waterfall plunges into a deep green pool of indetermi-
nate depth into which little light penetrates. The stream surges out from the
pool, cascading through the carved rock channel and sparkling in places
where overhanging trees thin out. Walking out of the gloom through thick
leaf mold up the dappled slopes, shards of sunlight occasionally blind
me and shine on the smooth, gray bark of the stately beech trees and the
almost fluorescent green of moss and ferns. My gaze is suddenly drawn to a
spider web a few inches away, rendered translucent by a sharp beam. Soon
the trees peter out, and after battling through the bracken, I reach the top
of the slope, and a few feet farther on join the rough, single-track road that
leads to the Inch of Leckie, which affords expansive views across the Carse
of Forth to the north. The sky is interspersed with cumulus clouds that
patch the landscape with slow-moving blotches of dark and lighter green,
and periodically dull and brighten yellowish-brown stretches of peat bog. It
is a late spring afternoon, and the sun has begun its descent, the shadows of
trees and hedges stretching across the valley floor. Thick stands of conifers
absorb light, forming dense, impervious blocks of dark green while vibrant
yellow gorse dominates areas of the landscape when struck by the sun’s
rays. Beyond the carse is a receding array of mountains; those in the fore-
ground are green and yellow, while those farther away are blue and gray
in tone, some with bluish-white snow-covered peaks. Behind me, the sun
suddenly disappears behind a cloud, and colors mute in the near distance,
but a shaft of sunlight surges through a break, highlighting a spot of dead
bracken on the mountainside in vivid reddish-brown hues. The sun returns
as it sinks, its angle to the land becoming progressively more acute, and the
textures of the slopes of the north-facing Gargunnock Hills that recently
appeared smooth are now accentuated by shadow, ridges, and contours,
with trees, rocks, and walls standing out. From the setting sun to the east,
the trees are brightly illuminated, and their texture and color are acutely
presented, but to the west they form ink-black silhouettes against the dark
blue sky. Suddenly, seemingly in response to this late sunburst, a medley of
sheep, crow, and lapwing cries mingle with the bubbling song of the curlew
and the melody of the skylark, focusing attention on sound. Below, on the
carse, the snaking River Forth glistens in the late burst of sunlight, winds
creating rippling pools across its blue-gray surface. A pale moon becomes
noticeable in the darkening blue of the sky, and the first few stars appear.
Time to head home.
This vignette exemplifies how our attention is successively captured
by the myriad effects of light in the landscape, coercing the gaze to move
between different distances and depths, areas of clarity and murk, colors
and intensities, and realms of movement and stillness. The affordances of
the particular landscape are integral to the multifarious effects wrought by
the variegated play of light, and different visual experiences emerge accord-
ing to the refraction, reflection, or absorption of light by distinctive gra-
dients, volumes, planes, and textures. In referring to the bird cries that
seemed to respond to the light, I also foreground how the coconstitutive
emergence of landscape and human subject is not merely enmeshed in
visual apprehension but resonates in multiple auditory, tactile, haptic, and
olfactory sensations. Temperature, wind, the sounds of rivers and streams,
Figure 2. The Hole of Sneath, Gargunnock Hills, Scotland, is the starting point for a walk
through which various levels of light are experienced that continuously transform the
landscape traversed and walked through. Photograph by and courtesy of Jack Croft.
and levels of moisture contribute to multisensory engagements that also

entangle the body in landscape. For instance, a bright level of light may also
be apprehended as warmth, causing the eyes to squint and the skin to color
while soliciting the body to move or luxuriate, and can instigate a sense of
alienation or belonging to the landscape. Ways of looking and seeing with
light can also inform the design of landscape to produce particular effects,
as Böhme (1993) exemplifies in discussing how daylight is orchestrated in
landscape gardening practices that “tune” space by managing the levels of
light that filter through woodland canopies.
Thus far, I have drawn attention to the fluid, vital, and processual
qualities of the landscape. I have focused on how this ongoing emergence
includes the endless play of light and the ways in which humans, as part of
the landscape, respond to these unfolding conditions, continually becom-
ing attuned to the changing visual scenes that they move through and
toward. We react to the changing space beheld, to the circulation of light
between inside and outside, and respond to a host of other factors that dis-
tract vision, tire or strain the eyes, produce optical effects, change mood,
alter levels of physical energy, and involve modes of moving. Accordingly,
seeing with light is irrevocably temporal.
To conclude this section, and reinforce the specificity of how we see with
light, I consider how this diverges from other creatures and varies among
humans. In the discussion of Chromosaturation and Model for a Timeless
Garden, I foreground the specificities of human visual apprehension and
how this conditions our perception of light’s multiple effects on the land-
scape. We respond to the brightness, shadows, and colors of the features we
see, while the stereoscopic facility offered by two eyes conveys information
about the size and position of elements in the landscape, as well as its depth.
Another key dimension of human vision is that we scan and focus when
encountering a landscape, and our eye “does not look at things but roams
among them, finding a way through rather than aiming for a fixed target”
(Ingold 2011, 132). I have also emphasized that the visual apparatus of
other creatures means that their ways of seeing are shaped by different foci.
This is essential when underlining the specificity of human vision and its
influence on our understanding of the world. Unlike the ways in which we
cast our gaze over the landscape, some animals adopt a panoramic look,
while others focus intensely on discrete elements. For humans, the visual
availability of elements in the landscape is conditioned by a limited visible
spectrum, whereas many birds are able to see with ultraviolet light. This
allows them to distinguish patterns on plumage invisible to humans; in the
case of kestrels, ultraviolet light is reflected off the scent marks manifest in
the urine and feces of small rodents. Because of the higher quantity of light
receptors in their retina, most birds of prey are able to discern prey from a
distance that seems inconceivable to humans. Contrastingly, vampire bats
are able to see the infrared radiation of blood in their prey. Other birds pos-
sess specialist photoreceptors that can detect polarized light caused by the
Earth’s magnetic field, assisting in directional perception during migra-
tion. On the other hand, human apprehension of color is thought to be
more acute than that of dogs and cats.
We can only speculate about the radical alterity of how nonhuman ani-
mals see with light and the landscape—consider the impossibility of com-
prehending the effects of the fly’s compound eye. Even if we reach some
understanding about the mechanics of vision, it is impossible to guess
how this interacts with an animal’s brain to produce the experience and
interpretation of what is beheld. Yet in acknowledging this otherness, we
can also never be certain that other humans perceive a scene as we do. Of
course, visual capacities and capabilities vary among humans, but cru-
cially, the perception of the landscape is shaped by humans’ entangled
visual and mental capacities, and by the cultures of looking in which they
live. As Hannah Macpherson (2009, 1049) asserts, “Neither the sighted
nor the visually impaired simply see ‘what is there’; rather, everybody’s see-
ing involves movement, intention, memory, and imagination,” attributes
that vary enormously across space and time.
Seeing with the Light of the Sky

The descriptive passage above about my Scottish walk also draws atten-
tion to the vitality and inseparability of the sky from the landscape. Yet the
very word landscape seems to exclude the celestial, focusing on what is of
the Earth, the landforms, contours and configurations, geomorphologies,
natural histories, cultural inscriptions, and distinctive features of particu-
lar kinds of terra firma, perpetuating a spatial “horizontalism” (Graham and
Hewitt 2013). By contrast, elements such as light, dark, sunsets, wind, rain,
clouds, and fog have been ontologically conceived as the immaterial opposite
of the concrete, material earthliness of the land, around and above which
they swirl and float. The apparently more stable features of the Earth thus
appear to contrast with the more evanescent qualities of the sky, although as
I have emphasized, such understandings overlook the dynamic state of flux
in which all aspects of the landscape are part of a world-in-formation. Dis-
tinguishing between material and earthly, and immaterial and celestial, ele-
ments is to mask how landscape is a fluid and emergent indivisible field. Cru-
cially, the land is not “an interface” separating earth and sky but is a “vaguely
defined zone of admixture and intermingling” in which medium and sub-
stance blend, as they do also in the human body (Ingold 2011, 119). Most
obviously, air and water penetrate the Earth, and photosynthesis absorbs
water and carbon dioxide and releases oxygen.
Emphatically, then, the sky is wholly part of the landscape; though our
vision informs us that it seems to be separate from the land, it casts its light
on and materially intermixes with the land. To see the sky is to see a light
that continuously enfolds and is enfolded into the world and provides the
means through which we perceive it. Thus we move and mingle through
the flux and phases of the medium of light as we do through admixtures of
earth, water, and air. And we align ourselves with and respond to the celes-
tial rhythms of sun, moon, and stars, to diurnal and nocturnal patterns of
the day, to sunset and sunrise, to seasonal shifts in qualities and quantities
of light, and to shifting patterns of weather.
Light circulates through the sky as electromagnetic radiation, and

though the sky often appears to be a transparent medium through which
light passes, the sheer vitality of the air out of which it is composed is over-
looked except on windy and cloudy occasions. In creative experiments
using techniques to visualize the apparently invisible, intangible air that
surrounds us, Malte Wagenfeld (2009) reveals that it is actually a vigorous,
ever-changing field of eddies, swirls, and pools that circulate around things
and inside bodies in unpredictable, often local ways. As a complex assem-
blage of interrelated, interacting, and networked energies and forces, air
also shapes the play of light, refracting and diffusing the sun’s rays through
the sky. Not only is air necessary for us to breathe, but it is the medium
through which light flows and sound is conducted. We thus see, hear, and
smell with the air. As Ingold (2016, 225) insists, the sky is not empty but
is “full of the material stuff of air . . . the very medium that makes percep-
tion possible.”
To consider how we perceive with the light that drenches the landscape,
I look at James Turrell’s Skyspace in Kielder Forest, Northumbria, the larg-
est area of commercial woodland in England, installed as part of a pro-
gram devised to attract tourists to the forest. Throughout his career, Turrell
has focused on the multiple qualities of light. He sometimes investigates the
properties of artificial illumination, but here, as in many other works, he
explores the qualities and perception of daylight.
Amid thick pine forest, Skyspace, a mile and a half from the nearest tar-
macked road, takes the form of a broad, twenty-foot-high tower built out
of local stone in which a passage leads to a circular chamber. A concrete
bench surrounds the chamber’s circumference, and a circle of small, dark
pebbles covers most of its floor area. An eight-foot lower wall painted gray
and rising at an outward angle is detached from the wall like a thick skin,
and above this, another wall reaches to the ceiling at an angle that leans
toward the perpendicular. It joins the ceiling in which is cut a perfectly cir-
cular aperture with a sharp edge, open to the sky. The radiance of the sky,
at all times of day, glaringly contrasts with the lower light levels in the inte-
rior and with the flat surface of the ceiling.
The sheer luminosity of the color that occupies the sharp-edged circular
opening dominates the experience of being inside the structure, attracting
a focus on the brilliant light, so vivid that it appears to constitute a solidity
at variance with our usual apprehension that the sky is immaterial. The
dominant presence of this concentrated light transforms our perception
by isolating the medium with which we see. We are seeing only the light
reflected and refracted through the sky that lies outside the cairn, but this
becomes the focus of our attention, instead of constituting the medium
with which we see everything else. Though the light of the sky is also the
source of the interior illumination of the chamber, this is subservient to the
brilliant luminosity of the changing colors seen though Skyspace.
In directing a focused attention on the light of the sky, Turrell fosters an
unfolding apprehension of those light effects that are “normally encrypted
in the perceptual noise of the day-to-day and lost in the general disregard”
(Adcock 1990, 206). In isolating it as an integral element of everyday
experience, Turrell detaches the light in the sky from the general ambient
array. Accordingly, as Craig Adcock asserts, Turrell’s light works are “so
fundamentally integrated with perception that it becomes meaningless to
separate the works from the physiological and psychological processes they
disclose” (38). As he also emphasizes, seeing color and light in this way
“seems to come directly inside the percipient’s own self-awareness” (35).
Thus the experience of Skyspace is coproduced by viewers and the disclo-
sure to them of the agencies of light. As the quote by Turrell on the Forestry
Commission website advertising the work articulates, “[My] work is not so
much about my seeing as about your seeing. There is no-one between you
and your experience.” In addition, as Skyspace particularly reveals, day-
light is always both physically and affectively charged. As Ingold (2016,
223) emphasizes, light “gets inside and saturates our consciousness to the
extent that it is constitutive of our own capacity to see or feel . . . an affec-
tive mingling of our own awareness with the turbulence and pulsations of
the medium in which we are immersed.”
Turrell’s skyspaces also enjoin us to pay particular attention to the sky,
and the landscape of which it is part. If visitors occupy the chamber for a
lengthy spell, the continuous variations in colors and intensity of the sky’s
light become apparent, changing according to the angle of the sun, the
time of day, the season, and the prevailing weather conditions. Yet even
under muted British weather conditions, whether flecked or thick with
cloud, full of stars or midday blue, a succession of intense colors enchants
the eyes and conditions the glow or gloom of the interior. As Georges Didi-
Huberman (2001, 51) describes:
The sky is no longer the neutral background of things to be seen, but the
active field of an unforeseeable visual experience . . . the sky is no longer
vaguely “around” or “above” us, but exactly there, on top of us and against
us, present because it is changing, obliging us to inhabit it, if not to rise up
to meet it.
Figure 3. Midafternoon, early December, James Turrell’s Skyspace, Kielder Forest. Turrell’s work
solicits a focused attention on the light of the sky and on the ways in which we perceive the
world with light. Photograph by the author.
By making the light appear material and close by, rather than extending in all
directions to a great distance from us, Skyspace challenges us to focus more
profoundly on the sky’s qualities and how it is an integral part of the land-
scape. As is evident from spending time in the chamber, the sky is neither
homogeneous nor empty but swirls with currents that distribute light, color,
wind, and cloud. This foregrounds how the sky has been neglected in concep-
tions of landscape (Ingold 2011). In the next chapter, I provide an account
of how the light of the sky witnessed in Skyspace shaped the experience of the
particular landscape of Kielder Forest on a late February afternoon.
Cultures of Seeing Landscape with Light

So far, I have focused on accounts that explore how humans perceive the
landscape with light, drawing on and extending the ideas of Ingold, Wylie,
and Lingis. However, an exclusive focus on these (post)phenomenologi-
cal aspects crucially neglects the cultural and historical meanings through
which we make sense of light. As I have already inferred, seeing with light
combines perception and imagination: the interpretation of perceptual expe-
rience is invariably entangled with symbolic and cultural associations, and
this is especially pertinent to the apprehension of landscape and the ways in
which light falls on it. An overly abstract philosophical approach, as Chris
van Dyke (2013, 401) asserts, can efface “the spatial and historical contin-
gencies under which the landscape is produced,” and a focus on the indi-
vidual observer “neglects the intersubjective construction of landscape.”
Onlookers read the landscape according to particular historical contexts and
cultural ways of looking, though in the immediacy of encounter, experience
is not determined by these values, aesthetics, epistemologies, and practices,
which, in any case, are continually emerging. To emphasize, ways of seeing
and interpreting landscape depends on its material qualities, their interac-
tion with light and our sensory experience, as well as being informed by inter-
subjective cultural understandings and values.
For Mitch Rose (2006, 537), cultural interpretations of landscape are
fueled by the imperative to transform “the vagaries and ramblings of mean-
ing, attachment, and desire circulating in the landscape into sense—that
is, into something that can be envisioned, set before our mind’s eye, or
imagined in a mental tableau.” Thus vision proceeds to envisioning, the
articulation and representation of landscape as a knowable cultural text,
resonating with symbolic meaning. The multiple play of light on the land-
scape thus “solicits and provokes, initiates and connects” onlookers into
making sense of sensations (542). This melding of the perceptual and the
symbolic can also stimulate emotional and affective responses, as the fol-
lowing passage by Rebecca Solnit (2005, 29) exemplifies:
For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can
be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far
away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of soli-
tude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you
are not. And the color of where you can never go.
This resonates with Veronica Strang’s (2005) insistence that we make

meaning with the materiality of the world, through formulating imagi-
native and symbolic concepts and categories. Materiality anchors and
crystallizes the meanings aligned with the phenomenological and affec-
tive experience of the landscape. Historical accounts record the multiple
features in the landscape that have served as otherworldly dominions for
supernatural and mythical creatures. Deep forests, mountains, waterfalls,
caves, swamps, lakes, deserts, and the sea are saturated with such allu-
sions. Similarly, light continually changes and may be difficult to pin down,
but its symbolic qualities endure. On particular occasions and at certain
places, light solicits powerful affects, emotions, and sensations, and thereby
accrues a host of symbolic meanings. Such sites and events may become
meaningful sites of wonder or contemplation, signifying metaphorical con-
cepts and cultural practices. As I discuss in chapter 7, the largely malign
beings that occupy the dark world after daylight fades are more varied and
numerous than the mythical creatures that occupy realms of light. More
broadly, as Susanne Bach and Folkert Degenring (2015, 46) claim, light
and darkness “form part of an ancient and extended set of symbols which
are ubiquitous in theology, philosophy, literature and the arts.” This ten-
dency for light to inspire the symbolic or metaphorical, or to signify the
power of unseen supernatural or divine agencies, is particularly apparent
where it is especially bright or unusual. As Barbara Weightman (1996, 59)
contends, “Specific environmental objects, landscapes, and structures are
invested with holiness,” and sound, smell, color, and light are integral to
numerous sacred rites and rituals. Besides the ubiquitous divinity of the
sun in ancient religions, rainbows spawn numerous myths, the aurora
borealis constitutes the domain of supernatural beings, and lightning sug-
gests the work of inhuman forces.
The centrality of light to the sacred is evident at Stonehenge, where
archaeologists surmise that the structure functioned as a celestial observa-
tory to witness the winter and summer solstices, and at the Neolithic cham-
bered cairn at Maeshowe, Orkney, where at the winter solstice, the rays of
the setting sun shine directly down the entrance passage. Such architec-
tonic functions characterize many other ancient sacred structures. More
metaphysically, Elisabeth Bronfen (2013) describes how the ancient Greek
goddess Nyx embodies night, Hera is the goddess of daylight, and Aether
is the god of air and light; all are part of a subtle, complex cosmogony in
which they represent an array of negative and positive characteristics. In
Christianity, light also has powerful sacred associations. In Genesis 1:1–5,
on the first day, God transforms the formless, dark void of the Earth—“Let
there be light: and there was light”—and subsequently divides the night
from day. Similarly, in John 1:5–6, God is described as “light and in Him is
no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk
in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth.” Light is thus also
truth and revelation, as 2 Corinthians 4:6 cites: “For God, who said, ‘Let
light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us
the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
Light provides evidence of God’s eternal and immanent presence, and con-
ceives Jesus as “the light of the world.” Similarly, in Islam, light provides an
ordering, sacred force, and Allah is regarded as the light of the heavens and
of the Earth. Throughout history, there are numerous occasions on which
“light and color in brilliant, radiant, and lustrous glory disclose events and
messages from beings supreme,” besides constituting the realm of mythi-
cal beings such as angels (Weightman 1996). As I discuss in the follow-
ing chapter, in church architecture light is deployed to make the presence
of God manifest and enchant sacred space with affective power. In recent
times, new age and neo-pagan groups have reinvigorated rituals associated
with the arrival of winter and summer solstices, attending ancient sites
and performing invented ceremonies (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
Later evocations of the sublime in landscape are inspired by the play of
light that induces sentiments of awe and the power of nature, especially
manifest in glowering clouds, bursts of sunlight, intense sunsets and sun-
rises, luminous mist, or strong contrasts between light and dark. Light has
also proved symbolic as a way to banish the gloom of overcrowded cities
and produce open, hygienic spaces full of fresh air, to serve a modernizing
force for enlightenment and rational recreation, part of the design of cities.
These mythical, moral, and religious interpretations add to the profu-
sion of symbolic meanings associated with light, underlining the impor-
tance of acknowledging the imbrication of the representational and the
nonrepresentational in visual apprehensions of landscape. Besides the
(post)phenomenological integration of subject and object in the sensing
of the landscape, discursive and representational treatments also inform
apprehension, and in turn, apprehension is conducive to the reproduc-
tion of forms of representation. For instance, romantic discourses of “the
sublime” continue to inform sensibilities about how to represent light and

landscape, and influence artists and photographers who try to capture the
darkened skies, gathering clouds, sunsets, eclipses, and sunrises. Such rep-
resentational endeavors are entangled with particular cultural practices of
sightseeing, informed by doxic understandings about what kinds of social
and somatic practices should be undertaken in order to consume land-
scapes freighted with numerous historical and cultural associations. The
camera supplements other techniques of gazing on the landscape, from
Claude glasses to mirrors (Urry and Larsen 2012), that extend modes of
visual apprehension and aesthetic interpretation through the consump-
tion of archetypal characteristics.
A brief consideration of landscape painting reveals that artists have
expended much effort trying to “capture” the effects of the light: for they
“know that to paint . . . a ‘landscape’ is to paint both earth and sky, and that
earth and sky blend in the perception of a world in continuous formation”
(Ingold 2005, 104). The impressionist painters of the nineteenth century
are particularly pertinent because they devised a novel way to represent
light, following the influence of J. M. W. Turner, often referred to as “the
Painter of Light” for his vibrant renderings of luminosity and the evanes-
cent vitality of air and light. Unlike the discrete colors rendered by the “aca-
demic painter,” the impressionist, irrespective of the location, sees light as
“bathing everything not in dead whiteness, but in a thousand conflicting
vibrations, in rich prismatic decompositions of colour” (Jules Laforgue,
quoted in Clark 1984, 16). Georges Seurat’s intentions to capture the emo-
tional charge and vibrations of light and color in his pointillist composi-
tions feature clustered stipples that articulate his concept of chromolumi-
narism. The dynamic, dappled play of light and shadow across lively scenes
of urban life are depicted in the paintings of Auguste Renoir, and in a series
of paintings of the same site over time, Claude Monet portrays the ever-
changing light that reflects on and tints lily ponds, woods, haystacks, train
stations, and cathedrals. Indeed, Monet claimed that “landscape does not
exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but
the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life, the air and the light, which
vary continually” (quoted in Thornes 2008, 575). These vital qualities
diverge from attempts to capture objectively and accurately the particular
light at a certain time and place; instead, they endeavor to represent light
in its shifting, vibrant qualities that correspond to an affective and sensual
engagement with place.
The works of Monet, along with those of Cruz-Diez and Eliasson, draw
attention to the processual ways in which landscape, always a ceaselessly

changing, vital realm, is perceived with the equally vital light that belongs
to it. They also reinforce awareness of the temporal dimensions of percep-
tion. Indeed, though other representational practices, whether artistic,
architectural, religious, or mythical, may construe a detached observer
who identifies the distinctive qualities through which aesthetic properties,
sacred presence, mythical signification, or moral quality are signified by
light, such separation from space and light is illusory, as is any suggestion
that landscapes are timeless, possessing definitive, everlasting features. For
as I have insisted, the cultural and the phenomenological are thoroughly
entangled in the ways in which humans multisensually perceive the land-
scape with light. The dynamic play of levels of light in the sky and across
space solicits an ongoing attunement for those enmeshed within the land-
scape. These sensory engagements and perceptions are subsequently inter-
preted according to distinctive cultural and historical understandings,
which along with the specificities of human visual apparatus underline the
wholly particular ways in which we make sense of light and landscape.
Chapter 2 Under the Dynamic Sky:
Living and Creating with Light
Daylight, Place, and Landscape

In this chapter, I analyze the qualities and levels of light that fall on particu-
lar landscapes and the cultural conventions that inform how these spaces
are apprehended and represented. In the first part, I investigate how the
light of particular landscapes contributes to a sense of belonging by draw-
ing on autoethnographic extracts, representations of place in photography,
painting, film and texts, art installations, and cultural events. In the second
part, I consider how architects manipulate natural light to provide sensual,
affective, and symbolic interior spaces.
I want to emphasize that our experience of light is rarely subject to
any conscious focus because it takes place in the unremarkable settings
of everyday realms and as part of the quotidian routines in which we are
entangled. This familiar space forms an unquestioned backdrop to daily
tasks, pleasures, and movements, practices that are repeatedly and unre-
flexively carried out. The familiar environment is organized to enable con-
tinuity and stability, which is in turn re-created by these regular practices.
Surrounded by familiar things, routes, and fixtures, we make our home by
the repetitive performance of habits, gaining a sense of belonging through
customary, routine engagement (Edensor 2006).
These unreflexive practices are further sustained by a collective sense of
place grounded through shared spatial and temporal constellations where
a host of individual paths and routines coincide (Hägerstrand 1982). Hab-
its link individuals to groups so that “cultural community is often estab-
lished by people together tackling the world around them with familiar
manoeuvres,” strengthening affective and cognitive links, and they under-
pin a common sense that this is how things are and this is how we do things
(Frykman and Löfgren 1996, 10–11). Thus paths, constellations of copres-
ence, fixtures, meeting points, and intersections stabilize social relations in
27
28 Under the Dynamic Sky
time-space. This familiar space, its affordances and functions, is produced

through daily household tasks and recreations, inhabitants’ repetitive com-
mutes to work or school, drives to the shop and post office, visits to the local
library or pub, or walks with the dog. David Seamon (1979) terms these
routine maneuvers “place ballets” and contends that they foster a mun-
dane, unreflexive sense of being in the world to consolidate what David
Crouch (1999) calls “lay geographical knowledge.”
Significantly, besides forming the basis for the practical accomplishments
of living, working, and relaxing, the everyday is also a profoundly sensual
space. As Lucy Lippard (1997, 34) comments, “If one has been raised in
a place, its textures and sensations, its smells and sounds, are recalled as
they felt to child’s, adolescent’s, adult’s body.” This interaction with every-
day space involves an embodied knowledge, and its unreflexive apprehen-
sion is therefore informed by a sensual understanding deepened by time
and embedded in memory (Noble 2004). The mundane textures, smells,
sounds, and sights of familiar spaces, the subtleties of climate, the forms of
everyday vegetation, and the medley of birdsong pervade quotidian homes,
gardens, parks, streets, and neighborhood backyards. The accumulation of
repetitively sensed experiences becomes sedimented in individual bodies to
condense unreflexive belonging. This sensory knowing of familiar space is
intertwined with particular cultural values, for the senses are always par-
tially cultural, are “cumulative and accomplished, rather than given,” and
can never provide unmediated access to the world as purely “natural” tools
(Stewart 1999, 18). As Constance Claessen (1993, 9) emphasizes, “We not
only think about our senses, we think through them,” since “sensory val-
ues not only frame a culture’s experience, they express its ideals, its hopes
and its fears.” For instance, while human patterns of sleep have been modi-
fied with the advent of widespread electric lighting, going to bed after dark
and rising after daybreak remain entrenched in the dominant moral and
health regimes of most cultures.
These sedimented, institutionalized cultural practices emerge out of
encounters with particular environmental circumstances. For instance, Tim
Ingold (2007, S20) suggests that dwelling means to “inhabit the open . . .
within a weather world in which every being is destined to combine wind,
rain, sunshine, and earth in continuation of its own existence.” Being in
place is thus both emergent and contingent according to how inhabitants
continuously adapt to weather, which as Phillip Vannini et al. (2012, 370)
contend, “occasions activities, provides us with resources, facilitates certain
types of actions and discourages others, and prompts us to learn certain
Under the Dynamic Sky 29
kinds of techniques for everyday living.” As part of the weather of place, light
becomes the subject of practical engagement by those who dwell and move
through the landscape, as well as the topic of familiar, everyday discussion
about what is happening outside. In the UK, this has become something of
a national trait, as people commonly greet each other with such phrases as
“it’s bright and breezy today” or “a bit gloomy, isn’t it?” Integral to the expe-
rience and understanding of specific landscapes and ingrained in cultural
myths, habitual sensations, and practices, light affords orientation to the
time of day and year, offers a sense of geographical direction, shapes grow-
ing seasons, warms and illuminates gardens and homes, and influences the
hues of the materialities and textures in the landscape.
Because modes of practice and apprehension are habitual and rarely
subject to conscious thought, they are difficult to identify, yet their affor-
dances profoundly shape how we interact with place. For instance, consider
how we draw the curtains as daylight fades or close the shutters to keep
out the early afternoon glare and heat. The modernist tendency in north-
ern climes has been to increase the amount of light that enters the house
by installing larger windows, yet in brighter longitudes, smaller windows
restrict the flow of light. The increasing popularity of conservatories in
northern Europe testifies to the desire to linger longer in the extended bright-
ness of the summer day. Moreover, a premium is placed on accommodation
that possesses a south-or southwest-facing aspect so that inhabitants may
bask in the morning sun in a garden or lounge, and stimulate houseplant
growth. Contrastingly, in Mediterranean urban squares, large, dense trees
provide shade at midday. People orient their walking trajectories to occupy
the sunny or shady side of the street. As the evenings extend in many cit-
ies, the pattern of activity changes as inhabitants seek out the social life
of the streets, leaving behind the homes in which they remained during
the darker months to haunt beer gardens, jog, stroll, or sit outside and
watch the sun go down. For those who inhabit landscapes where sunlight
or snow glare is particularly strong, practical measures such as wearing
hats and sunglasses, applying sunscreen, and walking in the shade speak
of anticipatory provision, tacit knowledge, and practical adaptation. Resi-
dents become habituated to certain conditions of luminosity (Rantala et al.
2011). This does not infer that such sensory and practical habits endure
indefinitely, for people also adapt to changing circumstances in which light
becomes more or less available. In a fascinating example that reveals the
allure of natural light for those unused to dwelling within it, Sophie Haines
(2012) shows how forest dwellers in Belize moved their houses to the side
of a new road where the canopy had been cleared. Bright daylight was sud-
denly admitted to their environs, and for these inhabitants, the clearing of
forest space symbolized modernity and progress while also heralding the
potential arrival of electric light; daylight and artificial illumination radi-
cally altered the material conditions and meanings of their everyday world.
In identifying these regular temporal social practices and sensual expe-
riences, it is useful to consider Henri Lefebvre’s assertion of the importance
of rhythms. Lefebvre (2004, 15) claims that “everywhere where there is
interaction between a place, a time, and an expenditure of energy, there
is rhythm.” In identifying the spatiotemporal specificities of place, he fur-
ther contends that “every rhythm implies the relation of a time with space,
a localised time, or if one wishes, a temporalised place.” The defining
rhythms of light and dark are especially evident toward the poles, where
darkness pervades diurnal experience in winter and light floods the night
throughout summer. This provides greatly contrasting experiences of place
and landscape throughout the year and instantiates institutional practices
such as the modern ritual of turning the clocks back and forward to extend
the daylight hours of business, work, and education. By contrast, in the
tropics, these variations of light and dark during the day are less annually
marked, varying by less than four hours across the year.
Echoing my contentions in the previous chapter about the vital qualities
of landscape, Lefebvre (2004, 17–20) also declares that “[There is] noth-
ing inert in the world,” a contention he exemplifies with the seemingly qui-
escent garden suffused with the polyrhythms of “trees, flowers, birds and
insects” and the forest, which “moves in innumerable ways: the combined
movements of the soil, the earth, the sun. Or the movements of the mole-
cules and atoms that compose it.” Accordingly, certain rhythms are stimu-
lated by the ways in which nonhuman life-forms respond to the availability
of daylight. The diurnal and seasonal patterns of plant growth are pro-
foundly shaped by the rhythms of light, as the light-sensitive pigments on
the tips of leaves or buds solicit organisms to grow toward the sun, pro-
cesses manifest in the landscapes and places that we inhabit.
To consider how we sensorially experience particular landscapes with
light, and the temporal dimensions of this apprehension, I return to James
Turrell’s Skyspace in Kielder Forest. Inside the chamber the dynamic sky
becomes the focus of an intensified scrutiny, a focus that draws atten-
tion to the fact that the sky is an integral aspect of the circulations and
emergences of the landscape. In becoming aware of the changing qual-
ity of the luminous celestial circle, thoughts turn to how this light might
tint and tincture the landscape outside the cairn, be absorbed, deflected,
and refracted. Moving from inside to outside reveals how Skyspace is inti-
mately part of the landscape, for it attunes us to the myriad ways in which
light modulates a northern English forest landscape. When cloud cover is
thick, the light bestows a uniformly dense, dark green on the forest that
blankets the land, while the nearby large reservoir resembles a flat, metallic
sheet without subtlety of tone. Yet a sudden burst of sunlight through the
thick cloud disaggregates the arboreal mass into a variegated patchwork of
green hues, picking out distinctive clusters and some individual trees, and
the reservoir glistens and shimmers with multiple shades of white, blue,
and gray. As the evening sun descends, longer shadows are carved across
space, and in the forest, strict contrasts between green and black impose
a two-tone pattern across its expanse. Finally, as the blue hour gathers,
the mass of trees once more acquires uniformity, this time of darker gray,
except where a few trees stand above the skyline to form starkly delineated
silhouettes. After visiting the Skyspace, our gaze is drawn toward the sky as
we develop an awareness of how shifting levels of light cause us to attune
and reattune to this particular landscape, alternately focusing on the hori-
zon, vibrantly colored things near and far, textures suddenly acutely ren-
dered visible, changing tones, and individual features.
Although most geographical accounts of landscape focus on land use,
cultural identity, vegetation, and geomorphology, the numerous qualities
that the light bequeaths to the landscape contribute powerfully to a sense
of place. While sunlight may possess a similar intensity and rhythm across
broad areas of the globe, local variations in weather and, above all, the dis-
tinctive earthly elements that reflect, refract, and absorb light in particu-
lar ways shape the ways in which we perceive a landscape. These proper-
ties are supplemented by the cultural resonances and representations that
also inform our social, affective, and emotional responses. Like Kielder For-
est, light-conditioned landscapes possess a distinctiveness that resonates
through everyday apprehension and popular representation, as textures,
surfaces, folds, and gradients interact with light in characteristic ways. For
instance, according to Lavinia Greenlaw (2006), British landscapes gener-
ally take shape under cloudiness, mild shadows, and weak suns that pro-
duce a distinctive tonal atmosphere, in which subtle and ever-changing
patterns of light and dark feature, in contrast to the fierce interplay of
shadow and glare that tends to characterize more southerly landscapes.
Within a larger space such as a nation, there are regional landscape
variations. For instance, in northwest Scotland the play of light seems
Figure 4. View from Skyspace to the reservoir, Kielder Forest, Northumbria, UK. The awareness
of the ever-changing qualities of the light from the sky stimulated by the experience of James
Turrell’s Skyspace leads to consideration of the distinctive effects of daylight on the particular
landscape represented here. Photograph by the author.
particularly distinctive: its plentiful lochs reflect water, the somewhat

sparse but sometimes effusive vegetation and plentiful barren rock surfaces
reflect characteristic hues, and the effects of the North Atlantic Drift gen-
erate dramatically changeable weather as it passes over the mountainous
countryside. Passage through this landscape offers experiences of multi-
hued, layered mountain vistas, silhouetted pine stands, silvery lochans,
vibrant purple heather, the spreading russet of bracken, glaring mossy
greens, brown-green deposits of kelp on seashores, and the blues and grays
of the sea. The unpredictable sky features a profusion of shifting clouds of
manifold form and shade, and occasionally, extraordinary juxtapositions
of murky clouds and brilliant patches of translucent sunlight that radi-
ate on parts of the landscape. Indeed, one such occasion made a dramatic
impact on me as I traveled through this unfamiliar landscape at the age of
fourteen:
We were travelling through the Western Highlands of Scotland, my mother

and father, me and my sister. It had been a dismal day, with squalls of rain
buffeting the car and we had remained ensconced in the vehicle for most of
the day, apart from a couple of stops for tea and snacks. Luckily, as we sought
a camping spot in the beautiful Glen Carron, the rain ceased and we stopped,
quickly pitching the tent. We set up the camping stove and put on the ket-
tle for tea. Because the kettle took some while to boil, I decided to wander
down to the river about 400 metres away. I walked swiftly across the springy
ground and drew the fresh air into my lungs, listening to the bird song that
cascaded from the trees. As I approached the river, I glanced back towards
the tent but the lie of the land meant that it was now indiscernible. I stood
for a while to take in the view. It was late spring and low, intense rays of sun
burst through, creating deep shadows and a phantasmagorical glow across
the landscape. As I walked to the riverbank, the birds suddenly ceased sing-
ing and swiftly, above the summit of the looming mountain, a huge mass of
black cloud gathered, seeming all the more disconcerting in coexisting with
the thinly spread sunlight. At once, the entire atmosphere seemed to change.
The only sound was the tumultuous roar of the raging river, swollen by the
rain. If I had walked a few yards further, I would be swallowed up by this
torrent, hurled into its depths. The darkening accumulation of cloud inti-
mated a deeper sense of foreboding about what was going to happen in the
world. Looking back once more, the tent remained invisible. I was transfixed,
immobile. Would I ever again experience the cosiness of the car, of convivial
human companionship?
The potency of the experience was provoked by a combination of elemen-

tal forces, but crucially, the momentary intensity was induced through my
abiding unfamiliarity with this landscape and the capacity of the sunlight
to produce such effects. Such vivid impressions reveal the potential for the
experience of unfamiliar landscapes to reveal the habitually, unreflexively
apprehended landscapes with which we are familiar. As with the confu-
sion prompted by being plunged into cultural settings in which we lack the
familiar competencies through which we address strangers, order meals,
buy items, or take public transport, so the sensory strangeness of other
landscapes—unfamiliar breezes, temperatures, textures, and sounds, as
well as peculiar light—can produce feelings of bewilderment, delight, or
estrangement. To a northern European, the luridly spectacular sunsets of
Los Angeles that coexist with an unfamiliar humid nocturnal gloom can
solicit a deep spatial disorientation.
Representing the Light of Landscape

An encounter with the strange, though typically not too strange, is a key
motivation for tourists in temporarily moving away from their everyday
worlds (see Edensor 2001). This desire for unfamiliar experience is mani
fest in an increasing range of tourist destinations that promote “celes-
tial tourism” (Weaver 2011). Adverts entreat tourists to witness—and
photograph—landscapes where distinctive forms of light diverge from
ordinary experience. Besides the nocturnal experiences of dark sky parks
and aurora, these include diurnal attractions based on sunsets and sun-
rises, and visitors to northerly European realms are lured by the dramatic
qualities of Nordic light (Birkeland 1999). On the official Norwegian tour-
ist website, Visit Norway, the following appeal is made to those who seek a
holiday in the “Land of the Midnight Sun,” traveling to Tromsø, the North-
ern Cape, Hammerfest, or other locations in the Arctic Circle to witness the
light-filled landscape: “24 hours of daylight gives the flora and fauna along
the coast an energy boost. This is likely to rub off on visitors as well, so why
not use the extra energy to experience some of the many midnight sun
activities available throughout Northern Norway?” Activities include fish-
ing, walking, kayaking, cycling, whale watching, and dining. These same
sites are winter destinations for tourists who seek darkness and the aurora
borealis.
The lights of the far south are also depicted in travel accounts, with vari-
ous descriptions of the illusory, uncertain, and blinding light of the Antarc-
tic rendered by those unfamiliar with such effects (Yusoff 2007). An instal-
lation at Sydney’s 2014 VIVID light festival, Terra Incognita, by McDermott
Baxter Light Art, attempted to capture the effects of the Antarctic light
by drawing on the Australian explorer Douglas Mawson’s account of the
1911–14 expedition to map hitherto unknown areas of the icy continent.
Mawson and his colleagues wax lyrical about the ever-changing light of
this polar region, despite the appalling privations they bore. The exhibit
featured dramatic sequences of vibrantly colored lighting together with
extracts from Mawson’s diary and other writings recorded in a voice-over,
to evoke the harsh yet beautiful landscape. Here are two extracts:
A calm morning in June, the sky is clear and the north ablaze with the colours
of sunrise—or is it sunset? The air is delicious, and a cool waft comes down
the glacier. A deep ultramarine, shading up into a soft purple hue, blends in a
colour-scheme with the lilac plateau.
The liquid globe of sun has departed, but his glory still remains. Down from the
zenith his colours descend through greenish-blue, yellowish-green, straw yel-
low, light terracotta to a diffuse brick-red; each reflected in the dull sheen of
freezing sea. Out on the infinite horizon float icebergs in a mirage of mobile gold.
These evocative accounts demonstrate how the light of certain landscapes

features in travel literature. Other creative forms and media practices are
equally concerned with representing light. In photography and painting, a
plenitude of advice to amateur practitioners is disseminated about the tech-
niques, equipment, and locations through which light effects might be cap-
tured. Professional photographers also attempt to encapsulate the quality of
specific landscapes, and this can contribute to the sustenance of “national
landscape ideologies,” in which the characteristics attributed to landscapes
epitomize esteemed national qualities (Short 1991; Edensor 2002). Melissa
Miles (2013) describes how sunlight was invoked to produce a powerful,
mystical connection between white settler Australians and the land that
they claimed as their own. The idealization of a distinctive Australian sun-
light guided the colony to differentiate itself from the grayness of Britain and
encouraged residents to forge an affective connection to the harsh environ-
ment. Through art, literature, drama, and poetry, the energy of the sun came
to penetrate the national psyche and stand for the promise and youth of the
new nation. This bright sunlight is presented as an essentially Australian
characteristic, natural and ahistorical, yet in critiquing these pervasive and
essentialist myths of national space, Miles shows how recent Australian pho-
tographers have investigated alternative ways to conceive light and its vola-
tile, ineffable, and ambivalent effects on photography.
Elsewhere, the ways in which sunlight subtly changes the hues and tex-
tures of certain desert landscapes condition place identity. Yet though they
may seem impassive and exacting environments, the ecosystems of such
landscapes may be precarious, as David Stentiford’s (2014) discussion of
Lewis Baltz’s photographs of the Nevada desert demonstrates. Whereas
such western deserts were painted and photographed to emphasize the
sublime light that suffuses them, Baltz works to decenter such visions in
the face of urban expansion, his photographs depicting the proliferating
waste and the encroachment of artificial illumination that is transforming
the qualities and apprehension of spaces formerly lit only by celestial light.
The glaring desert landscape also serves as a powerful symbolic backdrop
in diverse film genres including westerns, war films, and art movies, and
perhaps most famously, Lawrence of Arabia. Characteristically, Sean Cubitt
(2008, 119) claims, the desert is portrayed as a landscape of extremity that
“permits an extreme moment of exposure—of visibility and of embodi-
ment.” The human figure is stripped down to essentials, may suffer or may
stoically survive privations, become a more resolute character, or experi-
ence an epiphany amid the harsh beauty.
I have mentioned the impressionists’ endeavors to represent the vital-

ity of light; other painters have also endeavored to honor how light inflects
specific landscapes. John Constable was famously engaged in a sustained,
almost obsessive attempt to identify the manifold play of clouds and light
across southern England, with a particular focus on the skies of Salisbury,
Suffolk, Hampshire, and Hampstead Heath. The Heath was the location for
more than one hundred paintings created at different times of day and sea-
son that also investigated the varied effects of wind speed and direction, and
cloud type. Constable’s aesthetic concerns were allied to his acute scientific
interest in the dynamic meteorological processes that produced such effects
and were termed by Kenneth Clark as “the romantic conjunction of science
and ecstasy” (quoted in Thornes 2008, 572). This depiction chimes with
Gernot Böhme’s (1993) notion of the ecstatic in connoting how the clouds,
colors, and luminescence of the sky ecstatically inflect the landscape.
In writing about the importance of the sky to English landscape and
national identity, Pyrs Gruffudd (1991, 19) cites the author of a 1946 book
on weather who proudly proclaims, “It is this country with its changing
skies and flying cloud shadows that has produced Wordsworth, Constable
and Turner.” He also cites the architectural historian Nicklaus Pevsner’s
opinion that Constable’s skies signified “true Englishness.” Gruffudd quotes
a contributor to a 1932 book on the English landscape who asserts of the
painter’s works in Suffolk, “Nowhere does the greater light so rule the day,
so measure, so divide, so reign, make so imperial laws, so visibly kindle, so
immediately quicken, so suddenly efface, so banish, so restore, as in a plain
like this of Suffolk with its enormous sky.” Here the sky and landscape serve
to idealize both regional and national identity.
I have already mentioned the strong associations of light with Nordic iden-
tity, notably Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish notions of belonging
to place and landscape. Henry Plummer (2012, 6) evocatively points to the
“low slant of the sun . . . long shadows and strikingly refracted colours” in
the winter months. During long twilights he describes how “sky and snow
are equally tinged with rainbow hues that linger for hours” and how on mid-
summer evenings “the sun dissolves into an unreal haze that bathes the land
in a fairy-like glow, its colours strangely muted and blurred.” While Plum-
mer acknowledges the diverse topographies and ecologies of the Nordic
nations, he submits that “their skies share a subdued light that imbues the
entire region with mystery.” As he asserts, these light effects have “perme-
ated the arts” in these countries, stimulating representations of “the frail-
est, most evanescent aspects of nature,” as well as “a mystical intensity to
urban scenes” and “quiet domestic interiors.” The latter are conditioned by
an “ethereal light washing into barren rooms to bring every surface under its
spell, as it melts away contours and hangs in the air” (6–7).
Jan Garnert (2011) focuses on representations of midnight and twilight
radiance in the paintings of Anders Zorn of Sweden and how the people
in his paintings, the rowers, strollers, farming folk, dancers, bathers, and
occupants of sitting rooms, followed singular social and seasonal rhythms
that contribute to particular moods and atmospheres. Relatedly, Juhu Pal-
lasmaa (2011, 24) considers the collective work of such Nordic paintings
to be characterized by a “uniformity of feeling” that he describes as “a sense
of humility and silence, and a distinct sense of melancholy” that resonates
with a common “low and horizontal illumination” or “subdued and soft
light” that illuminates water, snow, and ice. Pallasmaa’s sudden, startling
revelation about his formerly unacknowledged familiarity with this north-
erly light and environment was accentuated for him by viewing these paint-
ings in a Spanish museum into which the sharp southern sun burst.
For Danes, the qualities of Nordic light are captured by the Skagen group
of painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including
P. S. Krøyer, Anna Ancher, Michael Ancher, Holger Drachmann, and Thor-
vald Bindesbøll, who established a colony at the northern Danish coastal
village of that name. They were attracted by the blend of seascape and the
quality of the light that provided fertile conditions for the emergent prac-
tice of plein air painting. The light represented in their paintings ranges
from stormy skies and still summer radiance to midnight sun, vibrant sun-
sets and sunrises, moonlit nights, and wintry, diffuse luminosity. The most
celebrated of these painters, Krøyer, was especially inspired by the light
of the evening “blue hour,” in which water and sky seem to merge. Ska-
gen is now a popular tourist destination, marketed as the “Land of Light”
and holding an annual “Blue September” festival to celebrate the twilight
period celebrated by Krøyer (Visit Denmark n.d.).
Though these associations with light are deeply enmeshed with cultural
identity, Barbara Matusiak (2012) attempts to provide a scientific ground-
ing for the unique qualities of Nordic light. She maintains that a low solar
elevation angle dominates for much of the year, with extended periods of
twilight and the distinctive occurrence of white nights north of the Arc-
tic Circle around the summer solstice. She argues that there is a marked
infrequency of sunny skies, notably in winter, and these factors deter-
mine the illuminance level at the ground, the color of daylight, and how
light is reflected, refracted, and absorbed in the landscape. Garnert (2011)
similarly contends that the seasonal variations of light and dark stretch
across places of similar latitudes, yet these are sparsely populated, and so
a richly shared experience of these distinctive daylight qualities lingers in
Nordic sensory apprehension of space and affective experience, and reso-
nates through habits and cultural representations. Whether these powerful
associations of light with Nordic landscapes and rhythms are scientifically
accurate is, however, beside the point, for they continue to influence cul-
tural identity and ways of sensing and, as I discuss below, inform a distinc-
tive approach to the use of light in architecture (for a critique of the notion
of “Nordic Light,” see Bille 2013).
It is instructive to compare the qualities of light sought in these Nordic
works with a contemporary artist’s account of her attraction to painting
the very different, “brilliant tropical light” in Sabah, Malaysia, just north
of the equator, during the monsoon season: “It rains most days, producing
a wonderful mix of early morning light, gathering monsoon clouds, heavy
rain, and then brilliant sunshine. As the light fades and the sun sets, streaks
of brilliant red flash across the sky. It is heady stuff. I felt saturated by heat
and light” (Conway 2010, 240).
Works of land and environmental art also draw focused attention to
how light shapes the apprehension of the particular landscapes in which
they are situated. Exemplary here is Walter De Maria’s ostensibly minimal-
ist Lightning Field (1977), set in a high desert plain in New Mexico and con-
sisting of four hundred twenty-foot-tall, thin, stainless steel poles that act
as gigantic lightning rods and are arranged in a rectangular grid measur-
ing one mile by one kilometer. To experience the work, visitors must travel
to the remote site, and it is recommended that they view the poles over a
prolonged spell. As Christopher Tilley et al. (2000, 42–43) consider, under-
lining my earlier point about the temporality of seeing with light, “time
as well as space becomes embodied within environmental art, not sim-
ply in the production of the art but in the act of encountering and expe-
riencing it: travelling to the site, the duration of the visit, the hour of the
day, the season of the year.” Over a protracted period, viewers may experi-
ence the impact of the changing light on the poles and on the subtle varia-
tions it bestows across the flat landscape, ringed with distant mountains.
As John Beardsley (1982, 227–28) remarks, the effects of the light on the
work make it “sometimes a chimeric work, disappearing in the bright mid-
day sun and becoming fully visible only at dawn and dusk when the entire
length of each pole glows with reflected light.” Anna Chave (2008) com-
ments on the sudden impact of intense light on the poles’ appearance dur-
ing sunsets and sunrise, and on the rare occasions when lightning strikes.
By virtue of its remote location, interpretations of Lightning Field tend to

be imbricated with notions of the sublime that continue to typify depictions
of light and rural landscape. In contrast, an installation that draws in the
light that plays across an urban landscape is Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate
(2004), on the west side of Chicago’s Millennium Park. This sixty-six-foot-
long, forty-four-foot-high, and thirty-three-foot wide, flawlessly polished,
stainless steel, curvilinear, elliptically arched structure provides a massive
metal mirror that distorts and defamiliarizes the city that surrounds it.
The reflections bring surrounding spectators and the lofty skyscrapers that
cluster beyond the park’s northern boundary into the piece, but its reflec-
tive surface is dominated above all by the changing sky above the city. Cloud
Gate thus has the capacity to foster a strong social and phenomenological
connection to one’s own body, the bodies of other onlookers, the immedi-
ate surroundings of the park, the larger urban space, and, overwhelmingly,
the sky and its clouds.
An artwork of very different provenance features in the High Line Park
that occupies a former elevated freight railway in Manhattan. Spencer
Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways is set in the windows of a loading
dock in the former Chelsea Market Building that lies alongside the park.
The piece’s title is a translation of the Native American name for the Hud-
son River that refers to how it flows downstream but is also subject to tidal
surges. It is composed of seven hundred tinted panes of glass that represent
the ever-changing, evanescent colors of the flowing water. Finch under-
took a seven-hundred-minute journey on a tugboat, photographing the
river’s surface every minute. Each pane represents the hue of a single pixel
from within each photograph, and these are organized into a chronological
sequence via a grid arrangement that tracks the journey. These snap-
shots capture something of the river’s innumerable colors that change in
response to the light cast by the angle of the sun and in accordance with
season, time of day, weather conditions, and water quality. The work thus
honors the manifold qualities of light that reflect off the surface of mov-
ing water and thoroughly recognizes the processual experience of place,
here focusing on an element that is linear, ever changing and continuously
moving. It also foregrounds the river’s historical role in providing a way to
transport goods and people but also a sensuous engagement with its flow-
ing waters by those who plied its course.
Finally, also staged in New York is a vernacular and highly place-specific
staging of light that ironically refers back to ancient rituals associated
with solstices. Manhattanhenge, a recently created event, does not occur
precisely at the summer equinox but twice, once in May and once in July.
Figure 5. Spencer Finch: The River That Flows Both Ways, High Line, New York City. Seven
hundred tinted panes of glass represent the ever-changing, evanescent colors of the flowing
water, underpinning a sense of the experience of place. Photograph by the author.
With its towering buildings creating canyon-like streets across the city’s
grid pattern, Andrew Wasserman (2012, 96) states that “the event allows
for a restructuring of one’s experience of the city: it makes newly visible the
relationship between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional struc-
ture of the city.” The city’s modernist form is integral in shaping the dra-
matic impact of the sun’s rays. Climactically, as the sun rests in the center
of the road above the horizon, a blast of light fills the channel, “dramati-
cally contrasting against the darkened, dusk-lit city that surrounds it.” As
Wasserman asserts, “The individual spectator becomes part of a collective
watching of the city, signalling for some an awareness of their placement
within both the city and the universe” (104).
Above, I have investigated the mundane habits, rhythms, and sensory per-
ceptions of the everyday and how these are shaped in response to the daylight
characteristics of inhabited places. I have also explored affective, emotional,
and sensory responses to the ways in which daylight falls on particular land-
scapes. In addition, I have looked at various forms of travel literature, pho-
tography, film, and painting to investigate the responses of creators in repre-
senting these distinctive light effects. Finally, I have looked at how artists and
others have endeavored to reveal the light of place and landscape through
site-specific installations and staged events. In so doing, I have grounded the
previous chapter’s focus on the phenomenological and culturally entangled
ways in which humans perceive with light by looking at how specific, situated
sensory attunements, affects, and meanings resonate in artistic representa-
tions of landscapes and situated cultural practices.
The Architectural Manipulation of Luminosity:

Sacred and Modern Daylighting
In this section, I explore how daylight has been orchestrated to produce
distinctive effects, moods, and meanings in interior spaces, undergirding
a profound sense of being in place that extends out to forge relationships
with the outside. The manipulation of daylight by architects can illumi-
nate particular areas, cast away darkness, provide a sense of time pass-
ing, enhance the qualities of things and materialities, and convey powerful
symbolic meanings. Daylighting thus has the capacity to blur boundar-
ies between the material and immaterial. For instance, Cathryn Vasseleau
(1998, 13) insists that light offers up “hinges or points of contact which
constitute the interweaving of the material and ideal strands of the field of
vision.” Accordingly, inside sacred buildings, light connotes the presence
and agency of divinity while also enhancing the sensuous qualities of inte-
rior space.
Besides its centrality to sacred prehistoric rituals, the use of daylight
has been an integral part of architecture since ancient times. Rome’s
Pantheon stands out among venerable buildings in possessing a capa-
cious interior toned by its oculus, the giant circular opening at the apex
of its dome that admits rays of sunlight that move around the chamber.
Archaeologists speculate that this may have had a sacred function as a

giant sundial through which a single sunbeam marked the daily advent of
midday or illuminated the doorway on auspicious occasions. Such numi-
nous moments—when light shines on symbolic spaces or icons, charges
precious materials with its shine or glow, or is absorbed or disseminated by
colored windows—connote divine, sublime power and recurrent moments
in the cyclical rhythms of religious cosmologies.
Light is an enduring ingredient of the religious experience of the mate-
rial world and has been continually deployed by the designers of sacred
buildings, as Aldous Huxley (1963, 109) elucidates: “Religious art has
always and everywhere made use of these vision inducing materials. The
shrine of gold, the chryselephantine statue, the jewelled symbol or image,
the glittering furniture of the altar.” For instance, Rosemary Cramp (2013)
speculates that in the dark interiors of Anglo-Saxon halls, illumined only
by open doors and shutters or flickering flames, the shimmering metalwork
of jewelry and weapons was highly prized, enhancing gloomy space with
the shine of gold and garnets, as the prevalence of numerous Anglo-Saxon
words for reflective light and changing colors suggests. With the advent of
Christianity and the growth of travel to Europe and the Holy Land, differ-
ent forms of lighting circulated more extensively to enliven sacred spaces.
For example, a new domain of light and color emerged in Anglo-Saxon
churches with the growing use of glass windows that allowed beams of
light to illuminate sacred spaces within churches. Along with candles and
lamps that tinctured tombs, crosses, and painted images, this daylight
“reflected on the surfaces of precious metals, shining carvings and ban-
ners, the golden covers of books and the altar blazing with the flames of
gems and yellow gold,” creating numerous focal points for devotion and
divinity (11).
Similarly, in medieval Byzantine churches, the development of luxuri-
ous furnishings such as vaulting, exuberant mosaics, and carved chancel
screens required pale light to enhance their allure (Dell’acqua 2005). In
western European church architecture, the most significant development
was increasingly complex and radiant stained-glass window designs. The
huge breakthrough heralded by the advent of Gothic flying buttresses and
pointed arches that superseded the massive, sturdy walls, thick columns,
and small, round-arched windows of Romanesque architecture allowed
much larger windows to be constructed, permitting far greater quantities
of light to enter ecclesiastical interiors. Also vital were the emergent possi-
bilities heralded by adding metal oxides to glass to produce vibrant colors.
Subsequent rapid development of stained-glass technologies and art-

istry, and the increasingly perpendicular styles that emerged, ensured that
effervescent light augmented the interior experience of colossal cathedrals.
Light was a prevailing metaphor in these medieval times and “resonated
profoundly with the concepts of clarity and opacity that functioned as
primary dichotomies for both moral and ontological systems,” and these
“translucent tapestries” were “planes for storytelling” (Raguin 2003,
13), acting as teaching tools to disseminate biblical stories as well as local
and national histories. Cosmologically speaking, the color experienced in
stained glass displayed how God animated but was also beyond the material
world: colors belonged to the material world, but their illumination by the
sun made light visible and thus revealed divine agency. Moreover, the pow-
erful effects of the colored light flooding a church’s interior or the vibrant
luminosity of the leaded panels constituted a focus for meditation. Contem-
plating such light was a route to the divine, of temporary transportation
away from earthly cares. As Virginia Raguin writes, “Image, space, colour,
light and materials fused in a visual concord,” revealing how stained glass
produces a combination of symbolic, aesthetic, and affective impacts (20).
Accordingly, the use of stained glass and other techniques that illuminate
the inside with the radiance outside underpins how light “does not neces-
sarily remain separated between language metaphors of abstract, textual
symbolism, and the visual and visceral sensation of light.” In such sacred
contexts, light “reveals the continuity between matter, metaphysics, meta-
phor and religious practice” (Bille and Sørensen, forthcoming).
Apprehension of the light passing through a stained-glass window
depends on the quality and angle of the light outside, and the translucency
and color of the glass. It also crucially depends on the levels of light inside
the cathedral. Panels tinted with dark hues stand out luminously against
a gloomy interior but are less effective if the cathedral’s interior is lighter.
As the development of tracery expanded the size and complexity of win-
dows, a progressively lighter color palette was employed. The greater range
of colors and increasingly elaborate lead designs produced an effusion of
creativity, which, according to John Piper (1968), diminished after the
Reformation, where a focus on paintings and pictorialism replaced crea
tions informed by faithfulness to the intrinsic qualities of glass and lead.
The best windows could be “at once cold and fiery—luminous as if them-
selves the source of light—incandescent, icy prisms, mapping the cosmol-
ogy of an idea.” Light used thus had “extraordinary power to dominate a
space and determine its atmosphere,” especially if we consider that during
its most creative period, the absence of any effective artificial light would
have made the experience of stained glass particularly mesmerizing (Sow-
ers 1965, 31). The popularity of stained glass as a way to convey light to
interior spaces has fluctuated since this heyday, with a nineteenth-century
surge inspired by the Gothic Revival, the arts and crafts movement, and
pre-Raphaelite art (Raguin 1990). In modern times, new technical and
design possibilities have emerged, with multiple variants of glass, diverse
colors, and varied textures deployed in secular as well as sacred settings,
and artists including Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, and Le Corbusier among
exponents of the art. As I discuss below, the different application of light
has been an essential constituent in much modern design.
The play of light in Islamic art is especially profound in the sensuous
spaces of the Alhambra, the palace fortress complex in Granada, which
marks the high point of Almoravid Andalusian architecture, where assorted
effects enchant the diverse halls, chambers, and courts. In the interior
spaces, light enters through windows or elaborately carved screens, play-
ing across the complex interlaced geometries of the decorative rhomboidal
sebka panels that line walls and arches, the array of small, pointed niches
that make up the muqarnas in domed ceilings, and the elaborate arabesques
that cover many surfaces. As the intensity and angle of the sunlight enter-
ing the chambers changes during the day, the shadows that play across
these three- dimensional decorative elements endlessly transform their
appearance and periodically highlight certain features. For instance, the
cupola in the Hall of the Two Sisters is illuminated by light from the sixteen
latticed windows, animating the muqarnas composed out of an estimated
five thousand honeycombs and giving a sense of animated movement out-
ward from the center, a cascading effect that accentuates some forms and
dissolves others to convey a sense of weightlessness. This extraordinary
use of light and sophisticated geometry produces an ornamentation that is
intense yet harmonious. Movement through the palace reveals successive
light effects, as interior and outside spaces merge in translucent marble col-
umns and floors, sparkling and still water, and a medley of subtle shadows.
The architectural manipulation of light through which interior spaces
are endowed with metaphysical, affective, sensual, and symbolic quali-
ties to deliver an intensified experience of place took a different turn in the
twentieth century. New developments in glass, concrete, and steel build-
ing technologies heralded the advent of modernist styles, expanding pos-
sibilities for deploying daylight, which was subsequently reconceptualized
as an integral building material (Menin and Samuel 2002). The impera-
tive of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century environmental campaign-

ers to devise urban spaces in which refreshment and recreation away from
crowded urban conditions could be sought was thought to foster “physical,
mental and spiritual health,” not to mention moral sustenance (Hickman
2013, 114). Modernist architects asserted that a flood of daylight inside
buildings augmented cherished qualities of cleanliness, hygiene, and
uncluttered space. Such notions promoted transparency and reflection as
positive qualities, along with an emphasis on the use of glass and white
surfaces that would enhance luminosity, with darkness and shadows con-
ceived as constituting problems in need of resolution.
These aesthetic considerations were accompanied by moral imperatives
among modernist architects to flood cities and building interiors with light.
Yet these overwhelming desires often denied the specific ways in which light
plays across particular landscapes. For example, the universalistic procla-
mations of the doyen of architectural modernism, Le Corbusier (1967), in
The Radiant City, which ordained that designers should ubiquitously create
large, horizontal windows, skylights, and balconies to maximize the avail-
ability of sunlight, denied the specific geographical relationships between
sunlight and place. While the large windows of rectilinear buildings might
admit plentiful light under Mediterranean skies, the same was not the case
in darker, more northerly latitudes. This also influenced how sunlight con-
ditioned experience of white-painted exterior surfaces, with the dramatic
effects of shadows varying according to geography, not to mention the
susceptibility of such surfaces to weathering and staining in colder, rain-
ier environments. Breaking down boundaries between inside and outside
might not be so pertinent in climates where harsh winters necessitate a
reinforcing of this division. Craig Martin (n.d.) shows how photographic
practices reinforced the idea that light was universal in quality. Like con-
temporary representations of places in tourist promotion, photographs
represented all buildings as sun-filled irrespective of the climatic conditions
in which they were situated, paying no heed to the local divergences of the
play of light and shade.
Frank Lloyd Wright articulated the maxim that it is essential to con-
sider light as “part of the building itself ” (quoted in Plummer 2009, 10).
Yet while moving away from the sacred allusions that typified medieval
architectural impulses, the modernist deployment of daylight continues
to resonate within earlier metaphorical and phenomenological inten-
tions to foreground relationships between outside and inside, and mate-
rial and immaterial. Mies van der Rohe’s “German Pavilion” in Barcelona,
constructed in 1929 and reconstructed in the 1980s, employed modern

steel and plate glass as well as more traditional materials such as marble
and travertine. These materials, together with the form of the building,
created a “flow between exterior and interior spaces” that is manifest in
the play of reflections and shadows across glass, steel, stone, and the rect
angular, external pool (Bille and Sørensen 2007, 271). The later work of
Tadao Ando similarly uses light as a relational quality that engages in dif-
ferent ways and at different times with other building components and the
surrounding space. As Jin Baek (2009, 115) remarks, things are “articu-
lated along borders of light and darkness, and obtain their individual form,
discovering interrelationships, and become infinitely linked. Light grants
autonomy to things and at the same time, prescribes their relationships.”
Ando’s Church of the Light, a minimal structure that has a thin crosscut
into the east facade through which light pours into the interior, renders
concrete walls luminous, seemingly immaterial. Ando draws on traditions
of transforming materialities through their interaction with light in ways
that bring into question their solidity.
The modern turn to light was, according to Plummer (2009, 11), pri-
marily motivated by conceiving buildings above all as “domains of imma-
terial forces and energies” that also articulate their own fluidity and tem-
porality in the ever-fluctuating light. This honoring of light’s vital qualities
and how it marks time through its rhythms and phases has been integral
to certain architects’ practice. Louis Kahn created buildings in which shad-
ows were a key element, and he expressly argues that increasing reliance
on electric light diminishes engagement with the world outside. Accord-
ingly, he contends that in turning on a switch, architects “forget the end-
lessly changing qualities of natural light, in which a room is a different
room every second of the day” (Kahn 2003, 252). Ando similarly suggests
that architects should devise buildings in which the constant movement
and rhythm of light is accentuated in its play across interior surfaces to
orchestrate successive, diverse moods and sensations. The quality of light
is marked out as a crucial element in the affective and sensual experience of
a building, as architects such as Ando strive to produce interior realms of
“ambience and mood, shadow and reflection, tonality and temperament”
(Plummer 2009, 15).
Above, I cited Plummer’s lyrical account of painters who were com-
pelled to capture landscapes and interiors under the spell of Nordic light
(2012). Plummer’s primary focus, however, concerns the modern archi-
tects who have deployed the presumed qualities of Nordic light in their
architecture, notably in creating interior spaces awash with sophisticated
daylighting effects, and grounding architecture in the luminous quali-

ties of place. Following some of the modernist strictures discussed above,
architects including Alvar Aalto, Sverre Fehn, Jørn Utzon, and Arne Jacob-
sen sought to advance the desirability of maximizing the properties of
fresh air and sunlight. However, unlike more universalistic approaches,
they refused to compromise the place-specific qualities of daylight. Accord-
ing to Plummer, these architects developed techniques that accommodated
the dearth of sunlight in winter to create “forms that were able to collect,
preserve and allocate the scant illumination, while putting its changing
moods on display as a metaphysical image of the North.” This necessitated
the molding of structures to admit low angles of light and the deployment
of reflective materials and colors, transforming “architecture into an opti-
cal instrument” and a “metaphoric evocation” (Plummer 2012, 6–7).
Moreover, a range of techniques and methods was developed by allowing
light to suffuse interiors, but also through the installation of glowing white
surfaces and curved shapes to produce a sense of plasticity, or the use of
more rectilinear forms and screens to create more splintered luminosities
and reflections, or combinations of both to incorporate reflected and dif-
fuse light. In the pared-down palette of these environments, colors other
than white and materials such as wood stand out vividly. Contemporary
architects such as Henning Larsen, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Juhu Leiviskä
follow this tradition, expanding and emphasizing different elements. Yet a
common thread persists: the affective, emotional, and sensual impacts that
such interior spaces produce undergird a sense of place as shaped by its
distinctive light. Together with the building materials used in construction,
these architectural approaches conjure up aspects of the landscape, the
surfaces of lakes, billowing clouds, the shafts of light cast through forests,
and radiant mists.
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen (forthcoming) explore how the
deployment of Nordic light is also perpetuated in the design of contem-
porary Danish churches. While also central to the design of older gothic
churches where the manipulation of light, shadows, and candlelight is pro-
nounced, in modernist churches the tendency is for light to generate “a
luminosity without shadows . . . to fill out the church interior completely,
yet without any form of blinding glare, so as to create a sense of openness
and infinity.”
Architects continue to deploy daylight in multiple ways and for diverse
purposes: to inculcate a relationship between inside and outside; foster
a sense of connection to place and landscape; cajole movement through
space; attract people to areas of luminosity and shadow; direct attention
Figure 6. Daylighting in Bagsværd Church, Copenhagen, Jørn Utzon, architect. This example
shows the skillful architectural manipulation of Nordic light to condition the mood and
sensuous qualities of interiors. Photograph taken by and courtesy of Mikkel Bille.
toward particular colors, textures, and features; communicate sacred and

symbolic meaning; convey a sense of time passing; enhance or investigate
the qualities of materials; foreground the vitality of light and the world; or
generate potent interior atmospheres.
These endeavors are being advanced by the development of new techno-
logical means. Glass applications are used in multiple ways to admit, bend,
and refract light, and sometimes exploited to compose a multilayering of
reflections from inside and outside in ever-shifting transparent collages.
Slatted, gauzy, latticed, and stippled opaque screens are used to challenge
perception, so that enchanting, sometimes illusory effects are produced as
the views through them alternately “turn solid, translucent, or transpar-
ent, and the next moment dematerialize into nothing” (Plummer 2009,
119). Finally, diverse luminous building materials, including treated glass,
alabaster, and various metals and plastics, are being deployed to absorb,
transform, and disperse light (Murray 2012). The relationship between
interiors and light will thus undoubtedly continue to be explored in novel
and still unimaginable ways.
In this chapter, I have investigated the mundane habits, rhythms, and
sensory perceptions of the everyday and the ways in which these are shaped
in response to the daylight conditions that characterize spaces of habita-
tion. I have also explored how affective, emotional, and sensory responses
to the distinctive ways in which daylight falls on particular landscapes are
appraised and represented. To provide a sense of the pervasive impact of
light on space, place, and landscape, I have discussed such cultural repre-
sentations and creative practices as travel literature, photography, film, and
painting. I have also looked at how artists have endeavored to elicit aware-
ness of the light of place and landscape through site-specific installations,
and how staged events similarly respond to moments in which light tempo-
rarily transforms place. Finally, I have explored how daylight has been har-
nessed and sculpted by architects as a crucial building material, deployed
to produce diverse aesthetic, symbolic, and sensory effects, and create rela-
tionships between external and interior spaces. These discussions have
reinforced my arguments in the previous chapter about the affective, emo-
tive, and sensory impacts that light bestows on place, by looking at how
specific, situated sensory attunements, affects, and meanings resonate in
artistic representations of landscapes and cultural practices. I have sug-
gested that the responses to daylight in these spheres and how it is deployed
and represented remain dynamic and continue to adapt to new ideas, tech-
nologies, and cultural contexts.
Part II Illumination
Chapter 3 Electric Desire:
Lighting the Vernacular and
Illuminating Nostalgia
Illumination and Its Discontents

It is difficult to imagine the radical transformation that accompanied the
introduction of gas and subsequently electric illumination in spaces for-
merly shrouded in gloom. Anke Gleber (1999, 31) captures the scale of
this change: “an increase in the numbers of pedestrians, the extension of
streets that can be passed at night, the amount of time that can be spent in
the streets, and the quantities of stimuli that one may expect to experience,
multiply to an extent that until then was unimaginable.” Yet as technol-
ogy advanced, by the second half of the twentieth century such lighting
had become an institutionalized part of everyday life. An infrastructure of
illumination was established in places, serviced and maintained by profes-
sional experts, regulated by administrative strictures, and shaped by vested
commercial interests. The excitement stimulated by the arrival of illumi-
nation as it colonized the city was replaced by mundane awareness of its
commonsense existence. The phrase disenchanted night, coined by Wolf-
gang Schivelbusch (1988), appositely characterizes this pervasive banality.
In this chapter, I discuss how initially inventive, novel, and diverse illumi-
nation culminated in technocratically regulated homogeneity, poor design,
and overilluminated nocturnal environments. Yet I argue that in recent
times, a recognition of this aesthetic poverty and illuminated excessiveness
is leading light designers to adopt approaches that deploy lighting in imagi-
native, innovative ways. This situation is fluid, multiple, and dynamic, and
because the styles, designs, and technologies of contemporary lighting are
expanding, I cannot offer a comprehensive account. Instead, I identify re-
cent significant developments in lighting that chime with broader contem-
porary spatial, social, and cultural processes.
53
54 Electric Desire
Since the advent of gas and electric illumination, light design has been
subject to aesthetic disputation and often compromised by commercial,
political, and infrastructural imperatives. Indeed, according to Dietrich
Neumann (2002, 7), “no other artistic medium of the twentieth century
has crossed the boundaries between art and commerce, technological dis-
play and utopian vision, easy entertainment and demagogic politics as
effortlessly as this.” There have been several excellent historical accounts of
the multistranded, contested installation of illumination in urban streets,
commercial districts, and sites of pleasure and spectacle (Schivelbusch
1988; Nye 1992; Jakle 2001; Otter 2008; Brox 2010; Koslofsky 2011).
These texts elaborate on how the development of gas and electric lighting
utterly transformed space, producing an ever-expanding illuminated noc-
turnal geography, although the process was uneven, patchy, and varied.
In many European cities around 1700, cafés and taverns became popu-
lar sites of nocturnal socialization, as the nighttime became more exten-
sively occupied for leisure and business (Brox 2010). The simultaneous
evolution of shops, theaters, and pleasure gardens fostered the rise of social
activities and the display of conspicuous consumption, boosting the com-
mercial reputation of cities. By the end of the seventeenth century, reliable
street lighting had been established in Amsterdam, Paris, Turin, London,
and Hamburg, as darkness was “slowly transformed from primordial pres-
ence to a more manageable aspect of life” (Koslofsky 2011, 78). Yet light-
ing’s expansion was initially slow and uneven. During most of the nine-
teenth century, the poor still used tallow candles and rushlights, the rich
beeswax candles. Later, more expensive, cleaner, and brighter spermaceti
candles, together with oil for lamps, were produced by the whaling indus-
try, and other fuels included the “oil of grape pips, flax or olives” (Attlee
2011, 38). As innovation accelerated, lamps fueled by paraffin and kero-
sene were succeeded by gaslight and, subsequently, in the 1880s, by the
incandescent electric bulb, itself gradually improved with the replacement
of carbon, tungsten, and subsequently ductile tungsten filament, and inno-
vations such as fluorescent and neon lighting. This more advanced illu-
mination stimulated the creation of extensive street lighting, illuminated
shop windows and advertising, and the illumination of private houses,
light blazing from their windows rather than flickering candlelight. Since
then, successive technologies of artificial illumination have continuously
pushed back the frontier of darkness (Melbin 1978).
The advancement of illumination is synonymous with the industrial
age, during which it produced “a new landscape of modernity whereby the
Electric Desire 55
city was ostensibly transformed from “a dark and treacherous netherworld

into a glittering multi-coloured wonderland” (Nasaw 1999, 6–8) and
darkness “expelled into the realm of prehistory and mythology” (Schlör
1998, 57). Rather than remain in their homes from fear of the dark, people
flooded into urban streets in search of amusement, spectacle, commerce,
and new forms of conviviality, as the early modern city became a venue
for new ways of living. The urban nightscape was progressively and radi-
cally transformed, with its “great white ways,” illuminated driving spaces,
night shopping areas, and entertainment districts, and bohemian and lei-
sure quarters grew to satisfy a range of desires after dark (Straw 2014).
Pedestrians constituted a new kind of audience, with the advent of the illu-
minated shop window affording a new kind of theatrical realm (Schivel-
busch 1988).
This reconfiguring of space by illumination contributed to spatial defa-
miliarization, uncertainty, and fascination, constitutive aspects of urban
modern experience. Artificial light has generated illusory effects through
which the city has been transformed into a phantasmagorical realm,
abounding with “the shadowy hauntings of the fleeting and insubstantial”
(Collins and Jervis 2008, 1). In the nocturnal city, distances can be diffi-
cult to ascertain, illuminated buildings appear to float amid gloom, areas
of darkness are impregnable to sense making and become sites for specula-
tion, and scale and proportion are deceptive. The modern city thus became
“a perceptual laboratory,” an oneiric city, “exhilarating and disorienting
to its inhabitants as its space was opened up to transgression, fantasy and
experimentation inhabitants” (McQuire 2008, 114–20). Charles Dickens
(1869, 76) captures the fantastic quality of gaslight as he gazes out across
the River Thames during one of his many night walks through London:
The river had an awful look, the buildings on the banks were muffled in black
shrouds and the reflected lights seemed to originate deep in the water, as if
the spectres of suicides were holding them to show where they went down.
As electric illumination spread throughout the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries, it was, as Chris Otter (2008, 10) stresses, a largely contingent
and improvisational process. The uneven replacement of gas lighting by
electric lighting exemplifies how the history of illumination is character-
ized by “multiple, overlapping perceptual patterns and practices rather
than singular paradigms.” Most lighting developments were typified by
ad hoc arrangements, local imperatives, competing technological sys-
tems and designs, and disparities in wealth and power. This produced “a
56 Electric Desire
teeming, muddled multiplicity of visual practices that cannot be reduced

to one hegemonic modality” in which new and older forms of illumination
coexisted (254–55). There was no dominant approach to lighting, and
though successive technologies were presented as improvements to those
they superseded, electric construed as superior to gas lighting, floodlight-
ing better than strings of bulbs in highlighting shape and mass, and backlit
panels worthier than neon, technologies labeled obsolete lingered in spaces
of poor investment. In the American city in the first half of the twentieth
century, John Jakle (2001, 57) remarks, the “night was made visually com-
plex in its illumination because of the various overlapping technologies,”
with oil and gas lighting persisting along with numerous forms of electric
lumieres.
Some regard the ongoing visual complexity as problematic. For instance,
in summarizing what he regards as the poverty of contemporary illumina-
tion, the light designer Mark Major (2015) critiques the illegibility of Lon-
don’s nightscape. He complains that a chaotic jumble of different forms of
light are subject to no overall plan or effective regulation. Major points to
the overlayering of different technologies and styles for more than a cen-
tury, as well as a lack of distinctively local designs tailored to character-
ful areas and an overweening focus on functionality at the expense of aes-
thetic quality. He also identifies overillumination, an excessive contrast
between bright and poorly lit areas and disproportionate commercial light-
ing. Accordingly, he maintains, it is often difficult to discern the boundaries
of unique spaces and districts, and to perceive iconic features amid a clutter
of illumination. The uncontrolled, unplanned array of illumination conse-
quently means that a sense of place in areas that possess distinctive identi-
ties by day is not similarly imparted at night. The illegibility and disorienta-
tion produced by the lighting that exists, and the dearth of any distinctive
lighting to highlight byways, buildings, and other features, or act as attrac-
tions in themselves, render places placeless.
However, other critics lament that much of the diversity of illumination
has been ironed out. For example, Jakle (2001, 15) contrasts earlier noctur-
nal visual complexity with the intensified saturation of space with electric
light: “Much of the romance and mystery of the urban night evaporated,
street lighting, in its excess, no longer capturing and holding attention as
spectacle.” Moreover, he contends, the earlier modern city also contained
gloomy areas that have now been vanquished by the colonization of illu-
mination. Where once people moved between dark and illuminated areas,
the diverse qualities of darkness, shadow, glow, and sparkle that formerly
Electric Desire 57
characterized urban experience have been replaced by a uniform glare. The

aforementioned dream-like, fantastical qualities of the city have dissipated
as a homogeneous wash of light spreads across space.
A consequence of the overriding imperative for the enhancement of
mobility, security, and commerce, prevalent overillumination has culmi-
nated in the production of nocturnal “blandscapes.” Consequently, light
designers and urban planners have expressed disenchantment toward the
ubiquitous use of sodium vapor lighting and “its nearly monochromatic
yellow light” that bestows on “people and things a pale, washed out appear-
ance,” banishing darkness and subsuming everything within an ambient
glare (Jakle 2001, 84). Within this yellow-pink wash, architectural fea-
tures and colors become indistinguishable, and contrasts diminish to flat-
ten visual appearance. Enveloped in the flood of light, more inventive and
sophisticated forms of illumination are unable to stand out, cannot add
charm to the nightscape. Moreover, this generic, functional illumination
uses far more power and is costlier to maintain than LEDs.
A further inadequacy is that contemporary illumination is excessive in
extent and luminosity. According to the International Dark Sky Associa-
tion (2012, 7), 22 percent of electrical energy use in the United States is
expended on lighting. Of this, 8 percent is used for public outdoor light-
ing, residential lighting accounts for 27 percent, industrial use 14 per-
cent, and commercial lighting 51 percent. A medley of common practices
contributes to this superfluity, with five kinds of light pollution identified
by campaigners against excessive illumination (see Geogise n.d.). There is
“light trespass,” where light invades space from a neighboring source, and
“light clutter,” in which confusing and chaotic forms of lighting infest the
nightscape, confounding orientation and legibility. “Overillumination” is
characterized by unnecessary lighting, such as lights left on in unoccupied
domestic rooms, empty office blocks illuminated, and commercial adver-
tising ablaze through the night, colonizing time and space (Gallan 2014).
“Glare” refers to contexts in which the contrast between dark and light is
too great and can dangerously cause temporary blinding for pedestrians
and motorists; “skyglow” describes the expansive aura of illumination that
leaches into the sky from cities. Besides producing poorly designed envi-
ronments, such unnecessary illumination is attributed to malign effects
on human health and devastating consequences for animals. Pertinently,
the emergent dissatisfaction with this overillumination is soliciting a reap-
praisal of gloomy qualities and a quest for spaces suffused with varying lev-
els of darkness.
58 Electric Desire
Dissatisfaction with prevailing forms of illumination is nothing new,

and historically, proponents of different technologies, practices, and ide-
ologies have often been ranged against each other. The Japanese scholar
Junichiro Tanizaki regarded electric illumination as signifying “the divide
between the cultures of East and West,” since “as opposed to candlelight or
lamplight . . . it erases distinctions between discrete spaces, making differ-
ence invisible” (quoted in Mizuta 2006, 343). Similarly, in the early years
of its introduction, many considered that electric lighting was too glaring
in comparison with the gaslight it replaced (Beamish 2015). With specific
regard to electric lighting, Ernest Freeberg discusses how “City Beautiful”
campaigners in the early twentieth-century United States decried the com-
mercial signage pervading the cityscape as vulgar, self-interested, and dis-
orderly, though opponents labeled such critiques elitist and reactionary.
These campaigners wanted to “create an orderly and aesthetically har-
monious system of streetlamps,” with a focus on a craft approach to elec-
tric light, featuring “civic lighting systems” with “buried wires, sculpted
streetlamps, and parks and public buildings washed in strong white light”
(Freeberg 2013, 253–56). This more communally oriented “civic repub-
licanism,” Freeberg argues, contrasted strongly with the exuberance of
bright colors and flashing commercial signs that signified free market lib-
eralism and pleasurable consumption, and a distinctively American “tech-
nological exuberance.” These approaches, according to Freeberg, were sub-
sequently supplemented by standardized measurements, techniques, and
procedures that developed under the influence of growing numbers of light
professionals.
Having briefly summarized some of the contestations that resonate
among those who design illumination and the key objects of dissatisfac-
tion that circulate around the mooted deficiencies of lighting, for the rest
of this chapter I explore creative approaches to illumination by profession-
als and nonprofessionals. First, I investigate how LEDs and bespoke lumi-
eres are being deployed to enhance the distinctive qualities of places, before
considering the upsurge in applications of sustainable illumination, nota-
bly forms of smart lighting that respond to particular conditions in real
time. Second, I look at how lighting is being innovatively used to reenchant
places, focusing on public artworks and installations, and the use of sen-
sors, computing techniques, and lighting that reveal the human and non-
human rhythms of place. Third, I examine vernacular forms of lighting,
contending that these vital, popular cultural practices underpin the per-
sistence of traditional, place-specific designs, and emphasize that contem-
Electric Desire 59
porary illumination does not solely revolve around technical and aesthetic
advancement. I also look at how vernacular expressions serve as a basis for
community-led collaborations with artists and designers. Finally, I explore
how lighting is entangled in broader concerns about the speed of cultural
and technological change, and as in other fields, is prompting a turn to
nostalgia, through which older forms of illumination are aesthetically
reappraised.
More Subtle and Sustainable Lighting

Growing dissatisfaction with contemporary illumination has been accom-
panied by the emergence of technologies and techniques that offer new pos-
sibilities for light design. The adoption of governmental and professional
strategies to develop more sustainable, equitable, and imaginative night-
scapes is spreading, as exemplified in the charter for urban illumination of
the international association of lighting designers, Lighting Urban Com-
munity International (LUCI). The charter encourages responsible lighting
strategies that pay attention to environmental and social impacts, advocat-
ing sustainable illumination and “reducing social and economic inequali-
ties.” It also foregrounds creative approaches to the enhancement of local
heritage and identity to produce nightscapes that are more distinctive. Fur-
ther, the charter asserts that cities “must aim at creating comfortable light
environments and protect darker areas” and “make starlight visible again”
(LUCI n.d.). Such perspectives have also been adopted by some local author-
ities, as at Eindhoven, where a lighting master plan specifies that “a respect
for darkness is a key tenet,” leading to a reduction in illuminated advertis-
ing later in the evening (Art in the Open n.d.).
Lyon’s Fête des Lumières has served as the catalyst for the wholesale
reenvisioning of everyday lighting across the city. The local government
has used the accumulation of expertise that the festival has engendered
to inform a particularly sophisticated lighting plan initiated in 1989 and
updated in 2004 and 2007. Ecological and aesthetic considerations have
been integral to these programs (Schulte-Römer 2012). Besides illuminat-
ing significant buildings and squares, lighting has spread to most parts
of the city, creating distinctive zones with varied hues, intensities, and
levels that highlight specific byways, vegetation, and architectural fea-
tures. Key aims are to produce “differentiated atmospheres,” diversity of
approaches, creative experimentation, the development of new technolo-
gies, responsiveness to residents, social inclusion, citywide coherence, and
the reduction of energy consumption and light pollution. The consequent
60 Electric Desire
sedimentation of expertise has resulted in educational and training pro-

grams and global consultations for local light designers, consolidating
Lyon’s reputation as an innovative venue for lighting know-how (Brätt
et al. 2010). Consequently, Lyon’s nightscape is not one of generic lighting
but of multiple colors, different intensities, and peculiar surprises.
One notable element in Lyon’s light design is the illumination of usually
unheralded architectural features or those that because they are too high
or blend with a multitude of other colors and textures cannot be clearly
perceived. The skillful spotlighting of these specific features makes them
stand out against the backdrop of a dark sky, allowing a visual appreciation
that would be impossible by day. Finials, statues and gargoyles, chimneys,
alcoves, and stone engraving are theatrically made available to perception.
Such highlighting is especially accentuated because most street lighting is
below roof height and the sky remains dark and star filled, providing a suit-
able backcloth. In the past, urban lighting plans have tended to produce
nocturnal environments flooded with light, mimicking the expansive day-
time illumination of sunlight. In Lyon, the experience of the nighttime city
differs dramatically from that of the daytime, with diverse illuminations
that honor place-specific architecture, atmosphere, and activity.
The tendency to flood space with light has also characterized the illu-
mination of symbolic buildings, where facades have been subject to pow-
erful floodlights to make structures stand out from their surroundings but
minimize appreciation of detail, texture, and form. More subtle approaches
are replacing this crude light saturation with techniques tailored to specific
architectural qualities, as exemplified by the 2013 revamp of the illumina-
tion of Durham’s medieval cathedral. Where formerly 53 floodlights pro-
jected powerful beams on the building’s surface, 247 separate low-energy
LEDs now pick out key aspects. Highlights and shadows bring the three-
dimensionality of the building to attention, and the eye is diverted to spe-
cific features such as the Norman towers, tracery, round and pointed arch
windows, pilasters, turrets, and carvings. Moreover, illumination reveals
areas of roughness, smoothness, and unevenness, allowing a fuller, multi-
sensual appreciation of the textures of stone. The effect of the new scheme
is not simply to spark a simple recognition of a local icon in the nightscape
but to offer a more thorough understanding of the cathedral’s architec-
tural, aesthetic, and historical complexity.
These subtle designs are increasingly complemented by the advent of
more sustainable, responsive forms of illumination. Writing in 2004, Peter
Davey (2004, 47) remarked that it was “ironical that we generally continue
Electric Desire 61
Figure 7. Durham Cathedral, 2014. This recent lighting scheme has replaced the previous
deployment of indistinguishable floodlighting. The scheme encourages a more substantive
appreciation of the cathedral’s architectural, aesthetic, and historical complexity. Photograph
by the author.
to pursue quantity at the expense of quality in illumination when techno-

logical development is offering so many new opportunities.” However, over
a decade later, new lighting technologies are now being intensively applied.
Political and economic imperatives to introduce more sustainable light-
ing have stimulated the replacement of incandescent electric bulbs with
lower wattage bulbs, notably more energy-efficient light-emitting diodes
(LEDs), in numerous public, domestic, and commercial spaces. Other new
techniques that shield luminaires to reduce ambient glare contain light
within discrete illuminated realms. The obligation to develop less costly,
more environmentally attuned illumination is also inspiring the evolution
of responsive lighting. Though in its infancy, and hindered by city dwell-
ers’ habituation to continuous illumination and persistent fear of the dark,
lighting technology that reacts to information in the built environment will
undoubtedly become more prominent in the future, for the prevalence of
lighting that shines through the night irrespective of utility is an obvious
area in which energy can be reduced. Accordingly, new developments in
62 Electric Desire
sensor technologies and digitally controllable LEDs has enabled more flexi
ble lighting to emerge, smarter forms of illumination that adjust to sur-
rounding environmental information and do not require the physical inter-
vention of humans to switch off, dim, or brighten intensity.
Certain sensors detect motion, triggering light to shine in the presence
of people and dimming when there is nobody around. Esben Poulsen et al.
(2012) investigated how patterns of human mobility could shape the illu-
mination of a town square in Aalborg, Denmark. The positions, numbers,
and speed of the people moving on the square were monitored by computer
analyses of thermal images taken from three cameras that responded by
dispensing illumination of changing hues and intensities. Similarly, the
light designer Sabine de Schutter has tracked movement and numbers of
people in a Berlin park to devise an adaptive system of illumination through
which the concept of Crowd Darkening was realized. When few people were
in the park, lighting levels rose to enhance feelings of security. When num-
bers of park users increased, light levels fell in response. Besides minimiz-
ing light pollution, a sense of well-being and a comfortable public setting in
which to socialize developed.
Other responsive innovations include the use of detectors that measure
levels of available daylight and subsequently adjust the levels of illumina-
tion supplied by luminaires. In interior settings that possess plentiful sky-
lights and windows, the available daylight varies according to time of day,
season, and weather conditions. When the sunshine renders the inside
bright, there is little need for supplement by artificial light, but when this
decreases, artificial light switches on. In the future, lighting receptive to
motion and levels of daylight is likely to be intensively deployed on roads,
where a lack of traffic or ample daylight renders illumination unnecessary,
but sensors will provide artificial light when conditions become too gloomy
or vehicles and pedestrians are detected. In addition, interior lighting can
be customized, adapted, and programmed according to individual desires.
Though certain forms of smart lighting alleviate the need for humans to
continually reflexively monitor light conditions, other networked tech-
niques are being developed that allow a much greater human input into
shaping illuminated environments. Lighting levels, intensities, colors, and
combinations can be altered in accordance with users’ desires, as part of an
increasingly networked world. Here, elements of codesign can be encoded
in lighting systems to provide greater agency in devising mood, color, and
luminosity, using intelligent controls through responsive phone and com-
puter devices rather than the light switch. As such engagements become
Electric Desire 63
integrated with everyday life as part of portable sensor and network tech-
nologies, they extend human capacities to act within flexible systems to
manage diverse forms of lighting.
In chapter 5, I further discuss responsive lighting at light festivals,
where temporary installations encourage inhabitants to become involved
in the codesign of the city’s lightscape. Such a capacity also exists in more
enduring contexts, for instance at Luminous Nights, installed across the
facade of the modernist Commonwealth Bank Headquarters in Sydney’s
Darling Quarter in 2012 and billed as the world’s biggest interactive light
display. Through advanced LED systems, light is manipulated via two digi-
tal touch screens, allowing colors and patterns to instantaneously trans-
form the appearance of the building, providing a vast canvas that extends
across 150 meters and the four levels of the building’s two discrete parts.
The installation indicates the possibilities for allowing citizens to design
the mood and look of cities. In addition to these spectacular public deploy-
ments, smart applications are being developed for manipulating light in
private homes.
More radical challenges to currently inflexible lighting systems are
being investigated by light designers and activists. In challenging the fixity
of the urban lighting grid and summoning up earlier modes of mobile light
before the advent of widespread artificial illumination, Susanne Seitinger
Figure 8. Luminous Nights, Commonwealth Bank Headquarters, Sydney. The potential for
interactive engagement by citizens with urban illumination is exemplified by this large
installation, in which light can be manipulated via two digital touch screens. Photograph
by the author.
64 Electric Desire
et al. (2010, 115) experimented with “light bodies,” portable lights car-
ried by participants that changed color and intensity through vocal and
tactile stimulation. They explored the “communicative, social, and play-
ful aspects of hand-held lights,” producing a performative dimension to
urban interaction. A more politically engaged mode of imprinting pres-
ence on nocturnal urban space has been developed by the Graffiti Research
Lab through the L.A.S.E.R Tag System (LTS). This is described as an open
source “Weapon of Mass Defacement” to perform “projection bombing,”
mobilizing projectors, cameras, and lasers to transmit designs onto the
surfaces of buildings and monuments from a distance of several hundred
meters (Susik 2012). Eyebeam, the organization within which this subver-
sive technology has been devised, a nonprofit body established to encour-
age experimentation at the interface of art and technology, asserts that the
LTS can be used by citizens to “post their art, messages and propaganda on
a scale previously monopolized by advertisers, governments, major media,
and other cultural tyrants” (Eyebeam 2006).
Finally, moves to produce more ecologically attuned environments
and diminish energy expenditure are not only dependent on technology
that develops more sustainable illumination. Other emerging techniques
will transform the nocturnal world, such as the application of a light-
absorbing dust that contains bioluminescent material and reflects light
energy absorbed during the day. With no energy costs once it has been
installed, this material obviates the need for electric lighting and can be
applied to any building or road to give it a phosphorescent glow, potentially
reenchanting nocturnal space and allaying fears about safety. Pro-Teq, a
UK company based in Virginia Water, Surrey, already produces a product
called Starpath that harvests the sunlight and emits a soft blue light at night
(Vincent 2013).
Many of the emergent technologies discussed above are at the proto-
type stage yet clearly have the potential to transform the appearance of the
nocturnal environment, contributing to a gathering multiplicity of illu-
minated forms and light sources, and augmenting the experience of dark
space in new ways. Other embryonic practices reduce the homogeneity of
lightscapes and reinstate a sense of place by imaginative highlighting of
overlooked textures, forms, and features. Moreover, by engaging with citi-
zens in the codesign of illuminated space and decentering the grid as sole
source of light, dark space may become far more available to experimenta-
tion by designers, artists, and laypersons.
Electric Desire 65
Enhancing Place with Light

Making Iconic Sites, Revealing Hidden Rhythms
A key way in which illumination can be imaginatively deployed is by
installing arresting designs that enrich a sense of place. Evolving digital
technologies have inspired the design of a plethora of mediatized displays
that transform the facades of buildings, offering new points of attention for
urbanites. For instance, between 2005 and 2007, diverse forms of infor-
mation were transmitted at the SPOTS installation in Berlin’s Potsdamer
Platz, not only “movies, graphics and animation sequences” but also “com-
missioned artworks that transformed the building’s shell into a communi-
cative membrane” (Edler and Edler 2015, 175). The application of digi-
tal technology on a much larger scale is evident in the gigantically scaled
Symphony of Lights, which animates Hong Kong’s waterfront skyscrapers,
boldly broadcasting civic identity in a spectacle synchronized to music,
“flashing and dancing in a frenzy of light and colour” (Petty 2015, 167).
These points of attraction and convergence animate cities with media
screens and mesmerizing illuminated extravaganzas, certainly contribut-
ing to a more variegated urban nightscape but perhaps lacking depth and
local relevance.
Accordingly, I now focus on three works that provide a more endur-
ing contribution to place, installations less concerned with bedazzling
onlookers but with subtly conjuring up other times and places, and show-
casing the kinds of identities that regeneration strategies often overlook.
Chris Burden’s Urban Light, situated on a previously bland area of paving
alongside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and adjacent to the busy
Wilshire Boulevard, provides a striking example of the creative reimagining
of place through illumination. The installation comprises a dense arrange-
ment of 202 restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s that were
used across Southern California. The seventeen different types of lamp are
painted in uniform gray and clustered together in a grid. The installation
conjures up a vanished world of public space and an ornate street vernacu-
lar that has been eclipsed by more functionally oriented urban lighting that
rather than illuminate sidewalks is primarily devised to facilitate the speedy
transit of motor vehicles. The beauty of these earlier designs rebukes such
functional illumination. By gathering these older fixtures, Urban Light hon-
ors what has been designated as outmoded and, in so doing, makes strange
the space in which it is situated. At night, the blaze from the solar-powered
lights illuminates the ground, the walls of surrounding buildings, and the
66 Electric Desire
lofty palm trees that rise above it, reenchanting the plaza in front of the
museum. This lures pedestrians and those in passing cars, providing a con-
vivial public space in which newly married couples pose for photographs,
fashion shoots are staged, kids play, tourists congregate, and teenagers
hang out, besides serving as a movie location. In making an unusual maze,
a dense grid through which the body can weave, Burden’s piece induces
a seething venue of activity on a previously lifeless nocturnal space, a
renewal of public presence that stands out on the often-deserted streets of
Los Angeles. In fashioning a novel attraction imbued with cordial inter
action, the artist critically addresses the dearth of public spaces in the city.
Illumination can also be deployed to reenchant abject spaces. For exam-
ple, the underground confines of Sunderland’s rail station, below a shop-
ping precinct in the center of the town, serve as an unimaginative example
of 1960s architecture and planning. With low ceilings and minimal decor,
the station formerly provided no distinguishable characteristics, with lit-
tle to distract passengers or make them feel comfortable as they waited
for a train in this unadorned, subterranean environment. However, since
2010, a glass block wall, extending for over 140 meters, faces the busy
platform 3 composed of individual LED units that form an animated dis-
play. Platform 5, designed by Jonathan Hodges for the Jason Bruges Studio,
features the continuous movement of thirty-five ghostly forms—mothers
with prams, dog owners, couples lingering, people lugging heavy recepta-
cles or wheeling suitcases, and single passengers strolling—that are ran-
domly selected to produce ever-new patterns of movement along a virtual
platform. Behind the light wall, long gone and hidden from view, was a dis-
used platform to which these ghostly forms pay testimony. Besides honor-
ing the passengers of yesteryear, the installation also mirrors those of the
present day, foregrounding the overlooked movements they make as part
of an everyday choreography that contributes to the poetics of everyday
space. This evocative piece underscores the impact that illuminated works
of art can have in the most unprepossessing places and advances the ways
in which light can be used to augment experience and serve as an integral
element in architectural design.
Lamp for Mary is an installation of a very different kind, a pink street-
light fitted in 2010 that illuminates an inner city laneway, Mary’s Place,
in Sydney. The light stands at a site at which a woman named Mary was
attacked and raped by two men in 1996. One year after the brutal assault,
the historically notorious, shadowy laneway, previously Flood Lane, was
renamed Mary’s Place, and later, the lamp, created by the artist Mikala
Figure 9. Chris Burden’s Urban Light, Los Angeles, 2013. Burden’s geometric arrangement of
historic street lamps has produced a vibrant, interactive public space in which people play, take
photographs, and critically reflect on the dearth of similar public realms in car-dominated Los
Angeles. Photograph by the author.
68 Electric Desire
Dwyer, was installed. The light offers several practical and symbolic effects.
First, it lights up the formerly gloomy passage with its warm glow, convey-
ing a sense of safety for those moving through at night, enabling the space
to be reclaimed by women and those of diverse sexual orientations. In addi-
tion, it remembers the woman who was subject to the unprovoked, vio-
lent act, publicly recording the episode and her resilience as a survivor. In
the broader context of the attack, it also commemorates the legacy of vio-
lence against members of the nonheterosexual community and its contin-
ued occurrence, as is underlined by the textual inscription at the site. The
form of the lamp is important in disrupting expectations about the kinds
of functional streetlights routinely used to illuminate alleys such as this.
Its unusually large size, glowing pink color, and similarity to a domestic
lampshade blurs distinctions between private and public space. Lamp for
Mary publicly commemorates an event and an identity that diverges from
the grand memorializing structures used by the state to immortalize the
usually male cast of statesmen, scientists and explorers, military heroes
and monarchs, figures who are being decentered in contemporary forms of
memorialization (Samuel 1994).
Different sensory and affective engagements are solicited by novel illu-
minated installations that acknowledge the often-concealed or invisible
energies, rhythms, and processes that (re)constitute places. New computer
technologies display patterns of light in response to sensors that detect
nonhuman and human rhythms that circulate within buildings or swirl
around and through the environments to which they belong. The early use
of such technology inheres in the design of Tokyo’s Tower of Wind, con-
structed in 1986 by the architects Toyo Ito and Kaoru Mende, a tall, cylin-
drical structure that serves as an exhaust air outlet for the underground
vehicular tunnel of the Aqua Line. Possessing a perforated aluminum coat-
ing that reflects the sky during the day, the structure’s appearance at night
is utterly different. Deploying computer sensors, mirrors, one thousand
LEDs, twelve neon rings, and more than thirty floodlights, it transforms
the functional building into an interactive landmark. Data that record dif-
fering wind conditions and city sounds are transferred into electromag-
netic pulses to create an ever-changing architecture of light and color that
responds to the complex city surrounding it.
Further exemplifying such applications, Pierre Auboiron (2010) dis-
cusses the work of Yann Kersalé, who organizes such technologies to ani-
mate usually unseen processes. Auboiron refers to the red lighting across the
roof of Lyon’s Opera House, which alters in response to the levels of human
Electric Desire 69
activity inside the building. Sensors and cameras record peoples’ move-
ments to reveal an “inner phenomenology” that brightens during night
rehearsals and well-attended concerts and pales when few people inhabit
the building. Kersalé has also arranged translucent rods in the garden of
Paris’s Branly Museum. Connected to the database of a nearby weather cen-
ter and programmed to react to the surrounding levels of heat and cold, the
rods produce a glare that colors the thick surrounding vegetation—white
when it is chilly, pale blue when the temperature is mild, and intense tur-
quoise on balmy evenings. Nonhuman energies were also revealed in Ker-
salé’s 1992 installation at the Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Nantes, where he
organized 1,900 blue spotlights across the facade. The intensity of these dif-
fuse patches varied according to sensors in the bed of the Loire River that
captured the flow of its current and tidal surges from the sea.
Finally, MIMMI (Minneapolis Interactive Macro-Mood Installation), a
large, curvilinear, inflatable light sculpture suspended thirty feet from the
ground, was positioned at the Convention Center Plaza in Minneapolis in
2013. Using textual analysis to identify key words from a four-thousand-
word database, the sculpture endeavored to reflect the mood of the city
as ascertained by local tweets and text messages gathered through open-
source technology. Besides the emotional content of tweets that might
reflect responses to the fortunes of the city’s sporting teams or weather, the
sculpture also possessed motion detectors that responded to human move-
ment on the plaza. This information was transmitted to LED lights that
glowed blue if feelings were cool or movement sparse, or blazed in bright
pink when positive emotions and large numbers of people predominated.
In conveying these moods in real time, the illuminated sculpture offered a
timely reminder that in an era of ubiquitous computing and flows of digi-
tal communication, the relations that inhere in space are expanding within
and beyond cities, reconfiguring urban experience.
Vernacular Illumination and Collaborative Design

The attention gathered by the advent of sophisticated, responsive, and sus-
tainable forms of illumination is apt to obscure the persistent role of both
innovative and traditional expressions of vernacular lighting. It is crucial
to emphasize that public illumination is not merely circumscribed by the
“cool” and fashionable, nor is it solely the provenance of lighting profes-
sionals; it also draws its significance from popular rituals, craft traditions,
and vernacular creativity.
This is especially apparent in fairground and carnival illumination that
70 Electric Desire
follows a ludic aesthetic that arose during the early expansion of electric
lighting. Gary Cross (2006, 365) describes how at the Luna Park and Dream-
land fairgrounds at New York’s renowned Coney Island, a fantastic architec-
tural array of towers, domes, and minarets were “outlined by electric lights,
giving these strange oriental shapes an even more mysterious and magical
air at night.” This art of the fairground tended to celebrate a “garish over-
abundance” that connoted pleasure, fantasy, and release from work for visi-
tors (Feigel 2009). Such lighting persists in older forms, as at Sydney’s Luna
Park fairground, and is updated to form new extravagant displays such as the
nightly laser show at Copenhagen’s venerable Tivoli Gardens. Its most exten-
sive contemporary manifestation occurs throughout September and October
each year at the enduringly popular Blackpool Illuminations in northwest
England and attracts more than three million visitors.
First established in the 1920s, the Illuminations has expanded for nearly
six miles along the seafront, featuring an eclectic mix of lasers, neon, fiber
optics, LEDs, searchlights, and floodlighting. Serial designs attached to
roadside lampposts extend in sequences along the seafront road, illumi-
nated trams glide alongside the promenade, and large, animated tableaux
flash and pulsate. Designs are both representational and abstract, diverse
in their animation, color, and form. The different icons, motifs, forms, and
styles that have varied from year to year constitute an astonishing com-
pendium of changing tastes and trends in popular culture. Though enor-
mously diverse, common themes include celebrity, film and television,
myth, the “exotic,” modernity, toys, folktales and nursery rhymes, Black-
pool scenes, nature, glamour, national identity, science fiction, historical
scenes, and the supernatural. Collectively, these representations testify to
the protean, dynamic qualities of British popular culture. For the past sev-
enty years, the illuminations have been produced at the resort’s purpose-
built department, where only tangential attention is paid to broader design
trends. This is a locally embedded craft workshop in which design traditions
persist through the accumulation of knowledge and skill. The department
honors continuity and tradition, but also persistently produces innovative
illuminations (Edensor and Millington 2013).
Blackpool has also recently been the venue for a large, ambitious dis-
play, Illuminasia, which expands the ancient Chinese art of lantern mak-
ing. Exhibited across several large halls in the town’s Winter Gardens com-
plex are designs made from silk fabric, steel rods, and various luminaires.
The spectacle, described as “The World’s Largest Indoor Illuminations
Experience,” uses thirty-five thousand lamps, twenty-seven tons of steel,
and twenty thousand acres of fabric, and employed fifty-six Chinese craft
Figure 10. Luna Park, Sydney, 2014. This is a contemporary remnant of the fantastical designs
of 1930s fairground illumination. Photograph by the author.
72 Electric Desire
workers for three months (Illuminasia 2014). Divided into discrete cham-
bers, display themes include terracotta warriors, an enthroned emperor, a
model of the town’s famous tower, an undersea world, world wonders, and
most dramatically, the “Land of the Giants” a garden replete with insects,
birds, and plants that dwarf visitors. Combining elements of national iden-
tity and heritage, global attractions and fantastic renderings of the non-
human world, the display is a multisensual feast that glows with rich col-
ors and luminous forms. In supplementing the locally produced designs of
the annual illuminations, Illuminasia exemplifies how vernacular cultural
forms from elsewhere increasingly enter places through global flows to
expand the diversity of light design.
Vernacular illumination is also created for display during festivals and
popular processions, at which myriad forms enchant the night with sym-
bolic or commemorative meanings: the illuminated floating-basket candles
devised for the Thai festival of Loi Krathong, the progressively more elabo-
rate creations paraded at Chinese lantern festivals, the expanded use of fire-
works for an increasing variety of occasions, the jack-o’-lanterns paraded
at Halloween, the glow sticks wielded in dance clubs, and the sky lanterns
used to celebrate significant occasions. Christmas is particularly associated
with specific kinds of illumination, with lights arranged around public and
private Christmas trees and city streets. In recent times, a particularly spec-
tacular effusion of seasonal lighting (El Alumbrado) completely alters the
streets, squares, and parks of Medellín, Colombia. An ambitious collabora-
tion between professional designers, technicians, and inhabitants, millions
of lights produce swathes of shimmering color to foster a powerful sense of
festivity and celebration across vast areas of the city.
Site-specific forms of vernacular light design are emerging in smaller-
scale collaborative practices between socially conscious light designers and
artists, and local inhabitants of disadvantaged urban areas. In seeking to
augment the qualities of public space, the outcomes of these engagements
register the presence of these residents in innovative ways that bypass homo-
geneous design, providing exemplary prototypes that suggest how neglected
environments might be enhanced. For example, in their Light Castle project,
the Finnish artists Anne Salmela and Anna Turunen create light installa-
tions in cooperation with residents of housing communities by inserting col-
ored lights in rooms whose windows shine onto the street, and by placing
personalized designs on these windows’ surfaces. Participants choose lights,
colors, photographs, drawings, and messages that collectively radiate into
the streets after nightfall, transforming familiar neighborhoods.
The light designers who constitute the Social Light Movement (n.d.) also
Electric Desire 73
Figure 11. World Monuments, Illuminasia, Blackpool Winter Gardens. The globalization
of the vernacular craft of Chinese lantern making constitutes the world’s largest indoor
illuminations. Photograph taken by and courtesy of Steve Millington.
practice this co-creation of the nightscape. While the foremost objective of

recent light design has been to focus on regeneration projects that aim to
upgrade centers, heritage districts, cultural quarters, and other prestigious
urban areas, more marginal and deprived realms have been neglected. Con-
versely, in housing estates and residential districts in uncelebrated, largely
working-class towns, illumination is often characterized by functional fix-
tures and dreary sodium lighting, with little attention paid to aesthetic
qualities. In addressing this, the Social Light Movement mobilizes the slo-
gans “Light is a right not a privilege” and “People before places.” The group
has created a network for lighting designers to collaborate on improving
lighting for those who lack access to good quality illumination. Overrid-
ing objectives are to design well-lit environments; involve communities in
light design; encourage other designers to work in similar environments;
educate public bodies, architects, and planners about the benefits of good
lighting; and promote responsible energy use.
These aims are exemplified in a social lighting project carried out in the
neighborhood of Sundholm, in southeastern Copenhagen, often depicted in
popular media and planning documents as socially deprived, economically
74 Electric Desire
challenged, and physically degraded. In 2011 the Social Light Movement ini-
tiated TRANSITION, a string of site-specific lighting projects that aimed to
contest the area’s stigmatized image by inviting local residents to co-create
lighting designs. In one scheme, Home Sweet Sundholm, traditional street
lamps were changed into cozy standard lamps to disrupt understandings of
space as unsafe or depressed, fostering a more homelike ambience. A second
initiative was Satellight, through which the satellite dishes on the façade of an
apartment block were illuminated with different colors, providing a subtle,
alternative impression of fixtures often identified in Danish media as ugly sig-
nifiers of segregated areas, or “ghettoes” (Ebbensgaard 2015).
Imaginative approaches to illumination, combining vernacular and
artistic designs, have the potential to subvert common and stereotypical
readings of low-status areas while enchanting the experience of place. And
the production of vernacular forms that ignore fashionable design trends
imprints marginalized identities on space, reminding us that light is not
merely concerned with “good taste” but can be deployed to celebrate festiv-
ity, tradition, and locality. Such lighting also reveals the intensification of
the postmodern blurring of popular and high culture, where the formerly
impugned qualities of the vernacular are valued in themselves for their
vitality, warmth, and humor. Indeed, such attributes may be sought and
celebrated by artists, and appreciated as an integral part of cultural inno-
vation (Edensor et al. 2009).
Nostalgia and Illumination

The final manifestation of the dissatisfaction with contemporary illumi-
nation I discuss is the tendency to look backward, to reappraise earlier
forms of lighting that have been devalued. This nostalgic impulse is part
of a broader social response to the speed of change and to aspects of con-
temporary culture regarded as impersonal and placeless. This propensity
is expressed through the consumption of retro fashion, the expression of
wistful sentiments about what is disappearing, desires to hang on to tradi-
tional or local forms, and visits to neglected, supposedly outmoded illumi-
nated landscapes such as at Blackpool.
Nostalgic responses have frequently accompanied historical transfor-
mations in lighting technology, the replacement of older designs prompt-
ing a deep sense of loss for what has suddenly been rendered obsolete.
Indeed, Otter (2008) reveals that new forms of illumination have rarely
been uncontested. He draws attention to complaints about the glaring daz-
zle of early electric lighting and how peoples’ desire for privacy and sub-
tlety trumped bureaucratic visions of illuminated omniscience. Freeberg
Electric Desire 75
(2013) discusses how in the early days of electric lighting, “colonial reviv-
alists” nostalgically advocated a partial return to the use of candles. Jane
Brox (2010, 89) similarly shows how urban dwellers, in rebutting mod-
ernist hyperbole about progress, expressed a nostalgia for gaslight shortly
after its replacement by electric illumination, opining that “its intimacies
seemed all the more desirable, and people instinctively clung to its linger-
ing form, the ghost in the mist.” More specifically, Joachim Schlör (1998)
describes the acute loss felt by many Parisians when illumination returned
after the blackouts of World War I. More recently, the inhabitants of Istan-
bul lament the slow demise of the practice of mahya, through which lights
strung between buildings, often connecting the minarets of mosques, com-
pose words and phrases (Türeli 2015).
Contemporary nostalgic urges are directed toward an assortment of
superseded lighting forms and practices. An area of retail is currently
devoted to a plethora of vintage, “heritage,” and antique commodities,
including clothing, foods, home furnishings, and popular culture that
connote the feel and style of earlier eras, and lighting is no exception. For
several decades, the external walls of British suburban houses have been
affixed with coach lamps, mimicking the carriage lamps of the nineteenth
century, and in recent years, that symbol of the 1960s, the lava lamp, has
been reinvigorated as a fashionable item, along with plasma globes from
the 1980s and Anglepoise lamps.
Neon is particularly salient in considering the reappraisal of formerly
outmoded styles. As Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein (2015) show, neon
exploded across the commercial centers of the United States, Europe, and
Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, its vibrant curvilinear signs symbolizing
a streamlined future of speed and efficiency. Yet after World War II, this
lighting technology was largely replaced with plastic fronted signs illumi-
nated from within by fluorescent tubes, and neon became associated with
the dilapidated areas of cities, signifying seediness and squalor. However,
it has now become the preserve of specialist designers and rehabilitated
by numerous artists who favor its plasticity, clear lines, and glowing colors
(Ribbat 2011). It has also become enchanted with a nostalgic aura. The
neon signs of Las Vegas, once considered tawdry and lurid, were inextri-
cably linked to the base desires and shallow pleasures associated with the
allure of that city. Today, however, the downtown area is adorned with the
commercial neon of the postwar years to form an outdoor museum, and
on the outskirts of the city, a large collection of unrepaired signs gather in
the Neon Boneyard, where they await a second life (Houston 2013). Neon
museums are also present in Edmonton, Philadelphia, and Warsaw.
76 Electric Desire
Research carried out at Blackpool Illuminations shows that most visi-

tors esteemed the lights because they evoked a sense of nostalgia (Edensor
2012; Edensor and Millington 2013). This was grounded in the repeated
visits made by families over several decades. Though the vast display annu-
ally introduces innovative technologies and designs to complement recur-
rent illuminations, most visitors enjoy the familiar fixtures because they
foster a sense of continuity over time. These nostalgic sentiments are also
part of collective family experience, grounded in the convivial tradition of
annual trips through which a shared compendium of memories is culti-
vated. The traditional elements and popular cultural references of the dis-
play resonate with these recollections and foster a connection with the
past. Chic and sophisticated aesthetics are not sought. Indeed, many visi
tors appreciate that in foregrounding traditional themes and styles, the
resort asserts its immunity to broader design fashions and tastes, reproduc-
ing a sense of its own uniqueness. Local designers are thoroughly attuned
to these desires.
Such nostalgic sentiments do not only surround festive lighting. In
Berlin, residents of the city’s Kreutzberg, Neukolln, Schoneberg, and
Figure 12. Neon Car, Las Vegas, 2010. This is one of the many attractions from the 1950s that
collectively constitute the city’s Neon Museum, through which the historical and aesthetic
value of neon has been reappraised. Photograph by the author.
Electric Desire 77
Figure 13. Tableau, Blackpool Illuminations, 2013. This is an example of the many forms of
vernacular illumination at the resort’s annual illuminations, displays that connote nostalgia
and celebrate motifs from popular culture in contradistinction to contemporary modish light
designs that signify a “cool” style. Photograph by the author.
Charlottenburg districts are campaigning to preserve the gas lamps that

illuminate their streets, arguing that they constitute cultural heritage. Ini-
tially maintained to “minimize West Berlin’s dependency on electricity sup-
plies that could have been blocked by the surrounding socialist state,” most
gaslights date from the 1950s but are a redesign of a popular 1920s model
(Schulte-Römer 2014, 309–10). In 2007 Berlin’s local government decided
that all streetlights should be electrified in order to cut public energy costs
and reduce carbon emissions, and a rolling program of replacement com-
menced in 2012. The scheme involves substitution with LED luminaires
that mimic the gaslights, though campaigners argue that these are eas-
ily distinguished and lack the illuminated qualities afforded by gas. Resi-
dents’ sense of everyday familiarity and comfort clashes with the tech-
nocratic understandings of lighting professionals and planners, and both
sides consequently articulate different notions of what constitutes a “pub-
lic good.” Though their opponents characterize resistance to technologi-
cal advance as uninformed, sentimental, and nostalgic, the campaigners
78 Electric Desire
skillfully articulate a sophisticated assortment of ideas in publicly com-

municating their arguments. They protest that this historical technology
has not been properly acknowledged as a “cultural asset” and is productive
of a distinctive aesthetic in which the warm glow and gentle hiss create a
unique atmospheric and sensory environment.
Even forms of illumination that may seem irretrievable can be re
enchanted with a nostalgic allure. Excursions organized to satisfy the
desire to witness and photograph industrial illumination is emerging as
a popular tourist pursuit in Japan. The phenomenon, Kojo Moe (factory
love), emerged after the publication of a photographic book, Kojo Moe-F
Background Reference Book, featuring nocturnal images of illuminated
chemical plants, foundries, cement works, and gantry cranes (Ken and
Tetsu 2007). Private tour operators and city municipalities have devel-
oped numerous bus and boat tours to meet demand, especially in the heav-
ily industrialized coastal zones of Yokohama and Kawasaki, and tourists
include many younger visitors as well as older people. As contemporary
son et lumière spectacles, tours focus on industrial megastructures, sati-
ating contemporary desires for the industrial sublime in a not-yet-post-
industrial context.
Nostalgic desires also focus on more archaic forms of lighting that con-
jure up a vanished past and offer an aesthetic, spiritual experience unfa-
miliar for those accustomed to modern illumination. Durham Cathedral
regularly holds an evening event titled “Free to Be,” in which the inte-
rior is illuminated with candlelight. Upon entering the cathedral, visitors
can experience an atmosphere staged to inspire prayer and meditation, and
become absorbed in large expanses or smaller spaces, soliciting a historical
impression of how people experienced this same space when candles and
rushlights were the only source of light after dark. The flickering flames
capture the mellow tones of stone and reveal ancient surfaces, pocked and
hollowed through the ages, as well as smoother, carefully chiseled newer
sections. Deep shadows focus attention on tracery, niches, and sculpture.
Nostalgia is often characterized as a sentimental looking back to an
imagined, idealized past that takes little account of progressive historical
developments, part of a conservative, defeatist refusal to face the onward
rush of technology and social change. However, its meanings are multi-
ple and can accommodate progressive, even utopian impulses, as well as
regressive stances and indulgent melancholia. The examples above suggest
that nostalgia can mobilize a critical perspective that interrogates claims
about style and status, and articulates a skepticism toward the advantages
Electric Desire 79
that new technologies and commodities promise. As Michael Pickering and

Emily Keightley contend, negative appraisals of nostalgia suggest that any
attempt to deal with the inevitable loss that accelerated modern change
brings is born of a refusal to face the present and future. Such constru-
als fail to take account of concerns that things of value may be lost and
lamented, for nostalgic expression may recognize “the value of continui
ties in counterpart to what is fleeting, transitory and contingent” (Picker-
ing and Keightley 2006, 923). The above practices resist tendencies toward
cultural amnesia and guard against the seductiveness of the continuously
new. In challenging the taste makers who pronounce on style and value,
they revalue the formerly vilified and find beauty in that pronounced
abject. Berlin’s inhabitants seek to preserve the uniqueness of place, its
familiar sensations and atmospheres, and visitors to Blackpool’s Illumi-
nations reassert shared values of familial conviviality and working-class
experience grounded in popular culture in opposition to the imposition of
fashionable styles from elsewhere. These engagements make sense of the
present by drawing on the past, which might serve as a source of potential
and aspiration containing the seeds of future utopias. Nostalgia may thus
be mobilized as a critical tool and here serves to highlight the multiple val-
ues, identities, and meanings that circulate around illumination (Strangle-
man 2013).
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have summarized how illumination, initially experienced
as enthralling and fantastic, has become subject to widespread disenchant-
ment. Though always uneven in its distribution, tendencies toward stan-
dardized homogeneity, poor design, and excessive glare have prompted
creative responses from professional designers and ordinary people. I have
interpreted these reactions and developments by identifying four processes
that signal the emergence of new, innovative, and reflexive approaches to
lighting. I surmise that these approaches will lead to far more culturally
and aesthetically diverse lightscapes, greater sustainability, a multiplicity
of interactive and environmentally responsive lighting, a wider acknowl-
edgment of vernacular creativity and supposedly outmoded designs, and
a more conscious focus on producing site-specific illumination, whether in
lighting plans or in the installation of artworks. In this chapter I have also
touched on the baleful effects of illumination, especially the unequal distri-
bution of good quality lighting, the saturation of space with commercial
lighting, and the production of normative, unvarying blandscapes.
Chapter 4 Caught in the Light:
Power, Inequality, and Illumination
I ll u m i n a t i o n always materializes power. As is evident in the grand

displays organized by monarchs to bedazzle subjects, the medieval mobili-
zation of a night watch to survey those out after dark, and the unequal dis-
tribution of premodern candles, illumination has always been entangled
with power in numerous ways. The immense expansion of illumination in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reconfigured the play of power, and
in contemporary times, new authoritative expressions and their attempted
subversion are articulated through lighting. The provision, design, and in-
stallation of illumination, its exploitation in scrutinizing the activities of
citizens, continuing inequality in the distribution of lighting, the cultural
values encoded in particular designs, and the production of forms of com-
mon sense that “naturalize” everyday illumination all mark power in dis-
tinct and changing ways. In examining these different expressions, this
account resonates with the different conceptions of power advanced by
Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jacques Rancière. The
discussion demonstrates how singular theoretical accounts are inappro
priate, for expressions of power are multiple, gather in strength and dis-
perse, and are contested in diverse ways; out of such struggles, new mean-
ings and uses emerge.
As Sean Cubitt (2013, 312) asserts, there is no intrinsic meaning to
light, but “an evolving set of meanings negotiated between scientists, engi-
neers, manufacturers, marketers, architects, interior decorators, urban-
ists and their business and domestic customers” as cultural and historical
contexts change, mutate, and adapt. A processual analysis is essential, for
light is never deployed in passive spaces that await sudden transformation
but reproduces power relations, is resisted, or used in alternative ways. In
investigating the multiple ways in which power is expressed, I identify four
key themes. First, I explore the overt use of lighting in the surveillance,
81
82 Caught in the Light
policing, and control of bodies. Second, I look at how lighting inscribes

various inequalities across space. Third, I discuss how cultural capital is
mobilized to assert judgments around aesthetic value and (lack of) taste.
Fourth, I examine how those who have the power to distribute the sensible
forge the normative arrangements through which we apprehend everyday
illuminated space. To conclude, I look at the emergent technology of urban
screens as a form of illumination that reveals contemporary alignments of
power, suggesting that various theoretical interpretations draw on different
conceptions of power.
Order, Surveillance, and Oppression through Illumination

The use of surveillance to regulate what happens after dark has unremit-
tingly been mobilized as a form of disciplinary power, producing subjects
that fall under a gaze or glare. Even in times before widespread illumination,
urban authorities frequently adopted stringent measures to regulate noc-
turnal activity. In many cities and towns, a night watch was organized to
guard against intrusion, suspicious activity, and the perils of fire. To fur-
ther minimize the presence of nocturnal interlopers, city gates were bolted
shut after nightfall to forbid entry and chains stretched across streets to
impede those who ventured outside. Though tradesmen such as bakers
were exempted from such strictures, others were apprehended, especially
women, subject to the suspicion that they were prostitutes (Brox 2010;
Ekirch 2005). Yet the advent of illumination did not diminish authorita-
tive endeavors to control movement and particular practices in nocturnal
space; instead, it prompted new techniques and procedures through which
urban populations were managed. Despite the desires of technocrats, illu-
mination has never been all-pervasive, and this has intensified suspicions
that those outside its glare are up to no good. Accordingly, a broader range
of figures emerged—radicals, bohemians, criminals, and prostitutes, for
instance—who were in need of surveillance. The development of lighting
provided a way to control nocturnal public morality, and imperatives to
order the night have continuously inspired the development of new tech-
nologies to channel bodies and focus on particular subjects and spaces.
Such strategies are invariably contested.
The early adoption of reflector lanterns in bourgeois areas, according to
Wolfgang Schivelbusch (1988, 95), laid the ground for the endorsement of
electric lighting in the later nineteenth century as “a guarantor of public
morals, safety and order.” Writing about Paris in the nineteenth century,
Schivelbusch illustrates how the standardization of public street lighting in
Caught in the Light 83
accordance with Baron Haussmann’s radical urban reconstruction repre-

sented an attempt by the state to replace the chaotic diversity of private lan-
terns, torchbearers, and gas lamps. But it also explicitly aided the policing
of the city’s rebellious communes and was understood by their inhabitants
as a threat to their nocturnal existence, provoking waves of lantern smash-
ing and erecting “a wall of darkness . . . protecting an area from incur-
sion by government forces” (106). Elsewhere, an ongoing struggle persisted
between the authorities and those who felt threatened by this intensified
surveillance, exemplified by the harsh penalties imposed on those smashing
lanterns in seventeenth-century Vienna, which could include cutting off a
hand (Koslofsky 2011).
Focusing on Victorian England, Chris Otter (2002, 2008) discusses how
illumination was part of an array of technological applications, including
transport and sewage, that drastically enhanced urban safety, mobility, and
health. Crucially, however, Otter contends that illumination was also part
of a bourgeois reordering of the city in which air pollution, lack of lighting,
few windows, overcrowded buildings, and teeming urban spaces were ame-
liorated by illumination, more rationally planned thoroughfares, the use
of glass through which sunlight could penetrate, more spacious settings,
clearer vistas, and cleaner air. Also integral to this restructuring was the
biopolitical reordering of people through surveillance, which accompanied
an intensified vigilance toward the self as well as others. Respectable bour-
geois citizens supposedly “mastered their passions in public spaces condu-
cive to the exercise of clear, controlled perception: wide streets, squares
and parks” wherein “sight can prevail, civil conduct be exposed to view and
those eminently Victorian qualities of reserve and distance maintained”
(Otter 2002, 3). The subsequent installation of technical infrastructures
that organized points of inspection were inscribed with the power for some
to scrutinize the presence and practices of others. The normative force of
these institutionalized technologies made “normal and durable the autono
mous, rational judging, distant practices of the liberal subject,” although
they were inevitably unevenly applied and enforced (259).
Otter insists that extensive illumination was thus part of a moral
and political reordering of the city, particularly since promoting the self-
government necessary for liberalism as a technology of rule was dependent
on producing sociosensual environments. For instance, the dense slums in
which a sense of touch was required for navigation in so gloomy an envi-
ronment was conceived as synonymous with an “ailing sensoria” and “ethi
cally dangerous.” It was regarded as imperative that these cramped and
dark realms should be replaced by wide, uncluttered, and brightly illumi-

nated spaces. Significantly, the pervasive darkness in these “rookeries” was
conceived as a sign and cause of moral, intellectual, and physical deprav-
ity, “physically incompatible with all forms of dynamism: material and
intellectual, individual and social” (67). The gloom was further believed to
magnify “disconnection and social dislocation” as well as the “circulation
of opinion” (84). Authoritative aims not only included the regulation of
behavior but also the ordering of the senses, deemed essential to a properly
functioning, rational, and moral subject. Stunted visual capacities were
aligned with moral failings, and darkness was understood as inimical to
individual, ethical, and social progress. As I discuss below, such strategies
exemplify how a “redistribution of the sensible” is sought to “normalize”
space and sensation.
The depiction of the gloomy slums of “darkest London” resonate with
colonial discourses about “Darkest Africa” and the Indian cities of “dread-
ful night” that perpetrated absolute distinctions between the colonized
realm and modern, “civilized” colonizing Western powers, narratives satu
rated with moral and social judgments that reinforced such binary geo-
graphical constructions. For instance, Gail Low (1989, 245) conjures
up colonial representations of the Indian city, as “the out-of-bounds city
where the living and the dead intermingle” and in which “everything exists
in a chaotic state of intermingling: a carnival of night and a landscape of
darkness, noise, offensive smells and obscenities.” The spread of electric
lighting thus served as a metaphor for the rigorous distinctions between
the civilized colonial self and the primitive colonized other, supplementing
classificatory schemes to identify cultures, races, and natural histories that
“naturalized a global order of dominance balanced on the knowledge and
moral worth associated with darkness and lightness” (Palmer 2000, 162).
Accordingly, the electric grid became a key icon of Western colonial moder-
nity as well as an ordering technology, and the illumination that it brought
symbolized the dissemination of Christianity, scientific rationalism, and
cultural superiority that was part and parcel of the “civilising mission”
(Winther 2008). Electric illumination was a material demonstration of this
power, a metaphorical and physical bringing of light that might “astonish”
the natives through its spatially transformative properties (Freeberg 2013).
Despite these colonial practices and discourses, the lurid fantasies of oth-
erness assigned to the unilluminated cities of the colonized were saturated
with suppressed libidinal desires. For the dark places outside the colonial
quarters condemned as disorderly, licentious, and sensuously excessive
lured European colonizers to sample their delights after nightfall.
La Tour de Soleil, a structure that was never built but was a competi-
tion rival to the Eiffel Tower, exemplifies the early grasp of the promise for
illumination to survey dark urban space. This giant tower would have been
equipped with powerful electric lamps to transform the Parisian night into
day, making all available to scrutiny. This surveillant use of illumination
persists in the use of searchlights beamed from helicopters during noctur-
nal disturbances. More mundanely, the quality of street light is a key factor
in recording images by CCTV cameras: insufficient illumination is likely to
render such images unclear and legally inadmissible as evidence. Security
lighting is routinely installed in private homes to keep intrusion at bay, fre-
quently part of a broader apparatus that includes cameras to record intrud-
ers. Besides these deployments, glaring lights have also been positioned as
an intimidating, overt display of political authority, as at Warsaw’s Palace
of Culture during the communist era, where extensive searchlights turned
the building into a beacon of power, emanating the glare of state control
over citizens (Gilbert 2000). Like the five luminescent ruby stars installed in
the 1930s on the five towers of the Kremlin when it was an iconic bastion
of Soviet power, and which continue to shine, the palace materialized state
authority (Buckler 2015).
Robert Williams (2008, 518) focuses on how darkness provides a cloak
for alternative and oppositional practices that temporally disorganize
space, contributing to an ongoing contestation between ordering and dis-
ordering impulses: “Because of its transgressive meanings and societally
harmful uses, darkness threatens to deterritorialize the rationalizing order
of society . . . when it obscures, obstructs, or otherwise hinders the deploy-
ment of the strategies, techniques, and technologies” of regulation. Typi-
cally, searchlights have countered the use of dark space to carry out politi-
cally oppositional practices or seek refuge from the law. Yet such techniques
are increasingly replaced by technologies that do not require light to detect
bodies. Surveillance systems use motion-detecting technologies to alert
security guards to the presence of people in dark space, helicopter sur-
veillance deploys thermal-imaging techniques to detect bodies, and night
vision equipment gives pursuers an advantage in moving and perceiving.
Whereas a powerful beam of light provides a visible threat to undercover
activity, these recent technologies may locate those under scrutiny with-
out their awareness. Accordingly, with the advent of these hyperpanop-
tical techniques, the idea that darkness provides cover from policing has
lost some salience, though emergent modes of avoidance attempt to bypass
them. And when they are displaced by “legitimate” revelers and com-
mercial interests, nocturnal habitués seek out more marginal spaces. The
nighttime city is thus subject to a shifting spatial politics whereby certain

spaces are contingently commodified, regulated, claimed, and abandoned
by different parties.
Besides scrutinizing citizens, pursuing suspects, and monitoring activi-
ties, lighting is used to deter particular activities. In urban neighborhoods
that host nightclubs and bars, powerful lighting with cold color tempera-
tures can be deployed to dissuade late-night revelers from congregating
outside in large numbers, producing an environment in which lingering
feels uncomfortable (Shaw 2014a). In central Glasgow, another regula-
tory technique involves the installation of lumieres that become brighter
in response to higher levels of noise, revealing potential trouble spots to
police. And the exclusionary methods through which light is deployed to
marginalize certain subjects from busy urban areas is exemplified by the
installation of ultraviolet light in public toilets to ensure that heroin addicts
are unable to locate the veins into which they inject the drug (Bille and
Sørensen 2007).
These strategies are supplemented by more overt techniques of affec-
tive and sensory disorientation directed toward those imprisoned and
under military attack. This includes rational, architectural designs seem-
ingly inspired by Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, in which all prisoners are
available for scrutiny from a central observation point, with the backlight-
ing of their cells always revealing their presence while ensuring that those
observing them are unseen. Contemporary high-security prisons posi-
tion glaring lights around their perimeter, imposing a continuously illu-
minated environment within which hypersurveillance occurs, ensuring
that these facilities stand out from the surrounding landscape, as captured
by Stephen Tourlentes’s (2012) stark photographs of American prisons.
The affective potency of these illuminated sites features in Phillip Lachen-
mann’s (2008) video work SHU (Blue Hour Lullaby), in which a California
correctional institution in the Mojave Desert is filmed from a distance for
twelve minutes as the sun goes down. As the all-encompassing light of the
blue hour fades from the landscape, the blaze of the prison lights becomes
dominant: the lighting of security and surveillance replaces the sublime
luminosity of the late afternoon sky. As the scene darkens, myriad lights
from airplanes that crisscross the sky start to appear. Lachenmann digitally
superimposed these airplanes, filmed as they arrived at the airports of Los
Angeles, Frankfurt, London, and New York via flight corridors from 2002
until 2005. This intensified accumulation of airplanes coasting high above
the inmates, all suffering solitary confinement, contrasts with the abject
illumination amid the nocturnal blackness of the desert within which they
are incarcerated.
Particularly obvious here is the minimally decorated interrogation cell,
lit with a single central bulb that shines harshly on the suspect, weakening
psychic resistance to questioning. Such logics are also used to deny detain-
ees the possibility of sleep, a well-worn torture technique deployed by the
US military in the current “War on Terror.” A sense of helplessness and
compliance is promoted by lighting cells with very high intensity lamps,
perhaps supplemented with loud music, and sometimes alternating the
glare with prolonged periods of utter darkness to confuse sensory and per-
ceptual experience (Crary 2013).
The ability to manipulate perception of light and dark space and to see
in the dark through advanced technology also provide a basis for gain-
ing advantage in war situations. In discussing the strategies designed to
confound the aerial gaze of German bomber pilots over Britain in World
War II, James Robinson (2013, 1056) focuses on the skillful practice of
camouflage through which the Earth’s surfaces at night were “transformed
and manipulated to further subvert the inhibited visual capabilities of the
human body,” thereby gaining an important military advantage. In con-
cealing vital installations and sites of production, British camoufleurs devel-
oped a sophisticated understanding of the different levels of light and cli-
matic conditions under which varied dark topographies were perceived
from the air. Accordingly, methods involving the use of netting, textured
paint, and fragmented patterning were devised to reduce shine and conceal
obvious structures. Conversely, the power of some to see in the dark where
others cannot is exemplified by the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. spe-
cial ops forces, who possessed night vision equipment with which to make
their way through his Pakistan compound.
The overwhelming affective and sensory effects of light— and
darkness—on the battlefield is explored by Pip Thornton’s account of the
2003 invasion of Iraq, where she served as a soldier in the British Army.
Thornton explains how the exercise of “Light Discipline” by the Brit-
ish Army endeavors to restrict light on the battlefield, so that signs such
as the lit cigarette do not give position and presence away. The ability to
perceive in the dark with night vision and other sensing equipment can
facilitate the ability to move behind enemy lines and leave evidence of pres-
ence, unnerving opposing forces. Techniques to illuminate soldiers’ bodies
so that they are visible to those with advanced night vision goggles further
advance these asymmetries of vision. More crucially, the power to mobilize
light to intimidate and destabilize civilians and military opponents was

used as part of the allied strategy of “shock and awe,” through which a
“nightly firework display of bombing, burning oil wells, strobing tracer fire
and industrial strength illumination” produced powerful affective impacts
(Thornton 2015, 13). Other techniques of aggressive illumination on Iraqi
battlefields included giant lumieres attached to parachutes that lit up large
areas, vanquishing darkness and intimidating those under attack, and the
use of laser light from above to pinpoint targets.
The Unequal Supply of Illumination

Light also materializes spatial inequality in demonstrating who has wealth,
power, and status, marking out the unequal distribution of financial, social,
and political power across space in numerous ways. The display of great
numbers of candles by aristocrats and wealthy merchants in medieval
times exhibited their privileged rank, while fireworks extravaganzas
demonstrated their largesse. Modes of spatial and social distinction accel-
erated with the emergence of extensive urban illumination. As I discussed
above, the elevation of emergent bourgeois sensibilities in Victorian Lon-
don informed the production of a geography characterized by the inscrip-
tion of inequality across urban space, the poor reduced to the inhabitation
of gloomy realms that symbolized backwardness and moral deficiency. New
regimes of spatial ordering implemented a calculated invisibility, illuminat-
ing that judged worthy of being seen but consigning to darkness those fea-
tures and districts conceived as less deserving of visual attention.
In nineteenth-century Paris, Martin Bressani (2015, 30–31) points out,
“a topography of wealth and prestige” was marked by an inequality in the
distribution of gas lighting; the continued use of candles in poorer realms
contrasted with the extravagantly illuminated commercial and wealthy
neighborhoods in which “brightly lit boulevards were appropriating the
old aristocratic privilege of an overabundance of light.” Similarly, Peter
Baldwin (2004, 752) notes how early nineteenth-century urban Ameri-
cans “gradually perceived a new order in the nocturnal landscape” with
the advent of gas lighting, with areas of ethnicity and class sharply deline
ated by contrasts in lighting, mapping imaginaries of safety and squalor
onto the city. As gas lighting became outmoded, the emergence of electric-
ity reinscribed illumination as a sign of status and wealth.
As Otter (2008, 335) points out, artificial light rapidly became “a sym-
bol and a determinant of urban differentiation.” Joachim Schlör (1998,
65) concurs, observing how the brighter the light in the centers, “the more
starkly do the outlines of the darker regions stand out.” This is underscored
by Jane Brox’s (2010, 104) contention that the brightly illuminated shop
windows, signs, theater entrances, homes, and pubs in the commercial cen-
ter contrasted with those realms regarded as “another country,” the dark
neighborhoods of the poor, in which “old light retreated into the far streets
and lesser known neighbourhoods, disregarded and disparaged in relation
to the new.” In the nineteenth-century, gas light spawned the arrival of
coffeehouses, clubs, and theaters, sites that constituted new spaces of gen-
dered and class exclusion, and this distinction was reinforced by dazzling
shop windows with their large panes of glass and sumptuously arranged
goods devised to appeal to wealthy consumers. Practices of illumination
thus created “new centres of power and new margins of exclusion” (Koslof-
sky 2011, 280).
The use of lighting as a means of distinction extended into the twenti-
eth century as “a technology whose conspicuous consumption was a sta-
tus symbol for both individuals and towns” (Harrison 2015, 3). And such
inequalities extended spatially as the electrification of suburban and rural
places occurred decades after that of urban centers. By drawing on the
city of Rocky Mount in North Carolina, Conor Harrison shows how the
selective installation of electric lighting was central to the development of
racialized urban space. While illumination was promoted in commercial
areas and white districts to prevent crime, it was deemed unnecessary for
black areas. Illumination metaphorically signified progress and modernity,
in contradistinction to the gloom of African American and primitive societ-
ies, and thereby naturalized spaces of “black dispossession and white privi
lege” in which investment and property values decreased and increased
respectively (14).
Accordingly, as Scott McQuire (2008, 124) submits, a “new ‘map’ of
the city” was produced in which particular buildings were floodlit and
other sites were cast into darkness, effectively manufacturing a reduction
in urban complexity, flattening out the city’s rough edges and less presti-
gious areas. This new urban cartography, materialized through the orga-
nization of light and dark, has taken many forms and continues to change,
but invariably remains inscribed with power.
In late nineteenth-century urban America, companies vied to gain con-
tracts to supply illumination, and the contest was especially intense between
Edison and Westinghouse. As cities competed, then as now, to claim their
place in the vanguard of modern technology and economic development,
the establishment of monopolies occurred in many areas (Cubitt 2013).
David Nye highlights the battles between different advocates of lighting

systems in the United States, especially between those who promoted the
installation of dazzling arc lights and supporters of the subtler illumina-
tion offered by incandescent bulbs, and between the civic-minded champi-
ons of sophisticated, subtle lighting and their commercially oriented oppo-
nents who wished to spread illuminated advertising. These clashes reveal
the persistent tensions that have played out ever since, “between public
and private lighting and between collective and individualistic visions of
the urban night landscape” (Nye 2015, 31). According to Nye, this battle
was won by those who deployed the commercial lighting that has come to
dominate urban America, a lopsided situation that persists with the provi-
sion of only minimal regulation to moderate the excesses of private illumi-
nation. As such, an “edited landscape” emerged that expressed the values
of private enterprise and the needs of automobiles, while a dearth of effec-
tive lighting for public spaces ensured that elsewhere, “much was erased
and obscure” (43). Subsequently, in the absence of strong planning regu-
lations, a disordered illuminated nightscape, endlessly recomposed by new
additions, has emerged, much to the frustration of urban planners who,
according to Nye, “inspired by the great expositions of the time sought an
orderly legible city” (44).
A geographical inequality in the distribution of urban illumination
remains, with unevenness in brightness, quality, and purpose. The lumi-
nosity of streets in American cities perpetuates a spatial hierarchy shaped
by imperatives to facilitate traffic flow and the imputed relative importance
of main streets, arterial roads, secondary business streets, and varieties
of domestic streets (Jakle 2001). In addition, symbolic buildings are high-
lighted against the contrastingly dark backdrop of less-esteemed buildings
and districts. Structures associated with local or national state functions,
heritage sites, monuments, and memorials reinscribe the cultural identities
and values of the powerful on space. With the conspicuous illumination
of high-rise corporate buildings, a now-common urban spectacle initiated
by the floodlighting of New York’s Singer building in 1907, images of illu-
minated high-rise skylines symbolize the glamour of the modern city, and
the illuminated corporate signs that glow atop such structures produce a
rather generic nocturnal text. Janet Ward (2001) also writes of the surface
culture produced in Weimar Berlin, a prototypical, spectacular urban set-
ting in which expansive electric advertising dominated the nightscape, a
lightscape that she contends prefigures the even more depthless landscapes
of the contemporary city. Urban lighting continues to obscure the city’s
rough edges, the industrial ruins, marginal retail districts, ghettoes, and
slums, in producing a selective aesthetic ordering of the nightscape.
The illuminated commercial effusions of the great white way have
reached their apogee in the iconic settings of Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing,
London’s Piccadilly Circus, Bangkok’s Patpong district, and New York’s ever
more sign-crowded Times Square. The spectacular development of illumi-
nation in Shanghai underscores its reputation as a growing cosmopolitan
city, a center of international finance and corporate capital. This echoes
the city’s prerevolutionary reputation as a meeting point between east and
west when the Bund, the city’s colonial waterfront, was also emblazoned in
lights, manifesting a different kind of power (Lin 2015).
Sandy Isenstadt (2015, 84–85) discusses the surfeit of signification that
saturates Times Square, a space crowded with illuminated signs and images
that compete for attention. According to Isenstadt, these “linguistic parti-
cles translated into pulses of light” produce layers of repeating rhythms
and “random juxtapositions” that in their profusion create an impression
of illegibility. Yet though they constitute a mesmerizing onslaught of signi-
fiers, sensations, and affects, they speak “the native patter of free enterprise
Figure 14. Patpong, Bangkok, 2013. This contemporary saturated urban nightscape is chaotic
in design but also enthralling in its excess. Photograph by the author.
itself,” signifying “frenzied sales pitches” and championing “artful asser-

tion over reflective synthesis” in articulating the American preoccupation
with making a profit. Such sites are thus encoded with an aesthetic and an
ideology of unhindered, unregulated commerce.
By contrast, the instantiation of a highly regulated, centrally planned
nocturnal landscape as a key part of widespread electrification symbol-
ized the power of state rule in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. Electric light
became particularly emblematic of modernization, a highly visible contrast
to the gloom of czarist rule (Buckler 2015). Yet such centralized systems of
illumination have more recently symbolized the failure of state socialism
and mark emergent forms of symbolic power, as Dietrich Neumann (2015)
discusses with regard to West Berlin. Here, bright white lighting, suspended
fluorescent illuminations, advertisements, and brightly lit facades were
consciously deployed to project a sense of prosperity and freedom in con-
trast to the gloomier sodium illumination used in communist East Berlin.
The different nightscapes of the formerly separated two parts of the city
remain clearly evident on aerial photographs.
Besides symbolizing the importation of technological advancement and
modernity to colonized spaces, illumination also marked the rigorous spa-
tial distinctions that colonizers sought to impose by designing “dual cities.”
Organized into native quarters and European cantonments, the latter was
typified by rationalized systems of pervasive illumination while the former
was generally consigned to darkness (Frasch 2012; Winther 2008). These
colonial inequities produced a legacy that continues to shape unequal
access to illumination. Jonathan Silver (2015) shows how the multiscalar
metabolic flows through which electricity used to be diverted to European
quarters in Accra, Ghana, reverberate in contemporary infrastructures
that provide unequal access to electricity and lighting. In highlighting how
these segregated, fragmented, and fractured networks produce configu
rations of power that resonate across Accra’s lightscape, he draws atten-
tion to neoliberal programs of structural adjustment that have privatized
the previously state-run electricity supply, generating a splintered urban-
ism in which there is selective access to power. Surges in demand for elec-
tricity from middle-class households to supply their air-conditioned, con-
crete homes often leads to disruption, yet because such households can
afford to purchase individual generators that provide an alternative energy
source, the effects of the blackouts are bypassed, and their houses remain
illuminated. For the poor, however, there is no recourse to such technolo
gies, and their economic endeavors are impeded by the outages. Yet the
plunging of their districts into darkness stimulates collective practices to

guard against crime and purchase candles. Itohan Osayimwese (2015)
similarly discusses how the notorious failure of the former state power sup-
ply, NEPA, prompts many Lagosians to seek alternative sources of illumina-
tion, inventively improvising off-grid practices in making do.
The unequitable access to power and lighting also occurs in rural India,
where rural electrification and illumination programs are often diverted
to other purposes or used to improve the environments of the rural elites
charged with their implementation. Cross (2013) contends that relatively
cheap solar-powered light, though much vaunted, lacks user adaptability
and easily available replacement parts, and has therefore not resolved the
problem of the widespread use of unsustainable, potentially dangerous
kerosene lighting appliances. Ankit Kumar (2015) shows how in the Indian
state of Bihar, the presence of a light in the bangla (porch) at the threshold
of village dwellings signifies the honor and hospitability of the household
and the social status afforded by the ability to purchase a lamp. The quan-
tity and quality of illumination also demonstrates household status dur-
ing weddings and other ceremonies, reinforcing existing hierarchies. Such
prestige is also broadcast by the use of ghee from cow’s milk, conceived as
sacred, to produce illumination during Hindu rituals.
The ability of the powerful to impose lighting on space is also manifest
in spectacular state ceremonies that deploy illumination to convey ideo-
logical meanings, extending affective and sensory impressions among large
crowds. A particularly malign expression of such power is exemplified by
the notorious Nazi rallies at Nuremberg for which Albert Speer designed
“cathedrals of light,” a form of Lichtarchitektur that evoked immense clas-
sical columns fashioned by 130 giant searchlights. Housing tens of thou-
sands of precisely situated followers, these three-dimensional forms pro-
vided a venue for spectacular mass choreographies of bodies, a potent
spectacle that generated awe and reverence among participants toward the
Nazi project and its leaders (Khodadad n.d.; Hagen and Ostergren 2006).
National tradition is also inscribed at Australia’s annual Anzac Dawn Ser-
vice at the National War Memorial in Canberra, an event commemorat-
ing the sacrifice of soldiers during World War I that forms the center of
Australia National Day. Shanti Sumartojo (2015) focuses on how the skill-
fully organized interplay of light and dark is mobilized to intensify shared
national belonging (2015). Darkness is deployed to both symbolize the
early morning offensive operations of the Australian troops at Gallipoli and
intensify the sense of belonging to an indistinguishable crowd of tens of
thousands, gloomy effects amplified by the contrastingly bright images pro-

jected onto the memorial’s façade.
Inequalities in lighting are also evident in the different subjectivities to
which particular appeals are directed. Margaret Petty (2014) shows how
throughout most of the twentieth century, the commodification of Ameri
can domestic lighting became entangled with highly gendered cultural
meanings and material relationships, not to mention a normative middle-
class, white national identity. Part of a much broader reconstruction of
female roles through advertising, educational, and mediated advice about
domestic tasks and feminine qualities, marketing campaigns aimed to per-
suade women that their beauty and glamour, as well as their home-making
skills and personalities, would be disclosed if they chose the appropriate
domestic lighting. Correct light, it was claimed, would accentuate the col-
ors and shapes of domestic interiors and enhance the appearance of those
within its glow, and would facilitate the efficient application of makeup.
Female consumers were advised to become skilled at deploying illumina-
tion to maximize enhancement of their own assets; in the 1950s, this
involved the purchase of pastel-colored incandescent bulbs to improve the
appearance of complexion. Petty considers that electric light, “with its daz-
zling, transformative properties, provided a context that encouraged, and
perhaps even legitimized, the increasingly performative nature of Ameri-
can femininity in the early decades of the twentieth century” (10).
Battles over Taste

The unequal spatial distribution of light is not the only way in which sta-
tus and distinction are expressed with regard to illumination. Bourdieu’s
(1986) work on the establishment of class identities around the acquisition
of cultural capital foregrounds the articulation of critical judgments about
the aesthetic qualities of a host of items and practices. In recent decades,
a significant cultural practice through which groups and individuals dis-
tinguish themselves from others is the making of authoritative assertions
about the constituents and parameters of “good taste.” The emergence of
popular lifestyle television programs, websites, and magazines that advise
consumers about how to improve their environments and bodies has pro-
moted an influential group of cultural intermediaries, namely, lifestyle
media experts, who pronounce on the virtues and failings of styles of home
decor, garden design, clothing, body shape, and diet (Bell and Hollows
2005). This has made new resources available through which an expand-
ing range of objects may be championed or disparaged.
Emerging out of particular forms of habitus, common sense, and shared

class values, these judgments are often intertwined with critical assump-
tions about other moral virtues and deficiencies that particular stylistic
expressions are thought to elucidate, and this includes assessments of pub-
lic, festive, and domestic forms of illumination. Here I provide two exam-
ples, based on previous research, of how two particular forms of lighting
typically produced and consumed by working-class Britons have become a
target for middle-class and professional critique, even vitriol.
First, the originally American habit of cladding the outside of dwellings
with bright, animated, and colorful lighting at Christmas was later adopted
in the UK, largely by the inhabitants of working-class housing estates, in
contradistinction to the broader range of geographical locations that typi-
fies American displays. This practice transforms the nocturnal appearance
of these low-key realms, introducing swathes of color and light that dra-
matically announce the presence of displaying households in a way that
would be unfeasible in daylight. The displays contain various elements: fes-
tive inscriptions, Christmas trees, Father Christmas, stars, sleighs, snow-
men, bells, and parcels, and depictions of toy trains, ladders, helicopters,
airplanes, hot air balloons, teddy bears, large inflatables of cartoon charac-
ters, flashing lights, and pulsing rope lines. Householders are not especially
concerned with displaying “tasteful” decorations. What matters is that the
overall effect is cheerful, festive, lively, amusing, and expresses goodwill. In
addition, the displays are rarely organized according to any design scheme.
As one displayer stated, “I just throw it up . . . it is that there, that goes there
and that will do. It depends what I pick up . . . I just fling it up: ‘Will it fit
there? Well, fine’ ” (Edensor and Millington 2009a, 112).
The displays can be conceived as part of an “economy of generosity”
(Edensor and Millington 2009b). Nearly all the householders interviewed
during the research claimed that they illuminated their houses for their
children, neighboring children, and the surrounding community. This, it
was asserted, was an expression of the spirit of Christmas and was further
illustrated by several displays that included receptacles to collect money
for charity. Though some found the annual task of installing the lights
onerous, they felt compelled to continue because neighbors who enjoyed
the displays would inquire about when they were to be switched on. The
responses of these householders refute widespread notions that these
Christmas illuminations are a competitive effort to assert status within
the neighborhood. Yet despite the evidently generous, lighthearted, fes-
tive, and community-spirited dispositions that motivate the displays, they
Figure 15. Christmas illuminations, Manchester, UK, 2010. Intended to celebrate festive, light-
hearted, and community-spirited values by householders, such illuminations have been heavily
criticized by those concerned to champion their contrastingly “good taste.” These class-making
expressions of distinction attribute many wider personal deficiencies to those who display
“chav bling.” Photograph by the author.
have become objects of derision, scorn, and disdain. Critics rail against the
lack of taste demonstrated by displayers, often using words such as tacky
and tasteless, and sometimes refer to how more suitable, toned-down colors
ought to be employed. Crucially, criticisms are attributed to moral deficien-
cies signified by the squandering of money and energy, likely benefit depen-
dency, crass attempts to attain status through showy excess, and a lack of
respect for others.
However, these illuminations are not intended to aestheticize neighbor
hoods, competitively assert status, express artful intentions, or express
“good taste.” Rather, they are temporarily installed communal decorations.
In vilifying these light displays by way of expressing their contrasting aes-
thetic discernment, these acerbic appraisals misconceive the meanings and
values that motivate their creation. These critical assessments exemplify
how domestic styles of illumination have become swept up in the taste-
making strategies entangled with intensified consumption and lifestyle
promotion that are part of a broader reconfiguration of class identity.
A second example focuses on how assertions about what constitutes

“good taste” inform judgments about public illumination. Lighting design
is becoming a critical component of place making, and professionally held
ideas about what constitutes “tasteful” illumination are deployed in urban
regeneration schemes. This is pertinent with regard to recent intentions to
upgrade Blackpool Illuminations by adopting cultural strategies that pay
little heed to locality or tradition, championing instead abstract qualities
connected to “art” and “design” that emerge out of the particular “cos-
mopolitan” aesthetic tastes and professional practices of members of the
“creative class” (Florida 2005). Certain forms of urban homogeneity result
through the adoption of particular “designscapes,” depicted by Guy Julier
(2005, 874) as a critical agglomeration of “brand design, architecture,
urban planning, events and exhibitions” that articulate shared tastes,
motivations, and connections to produce a form of “aesthetic consent.” For
instance, the interiors of businesses in many cultural quarters have had
cobalt blue illumination installed to connote a sophisticated atmosphere
and a “cool” place image, a style that produces a certain visual sameness.
In contrast to these globalized settings, Blackpool Illuminations express
distinctive vernacular styles and local craft traditions that draw on Brit-
ish popular culture. As research has shown, most visitors are not drawn to
the Illuminations in order to review their aesthetic or artistic qualities but
to become immersed in the atmosphere that they coproduce (Edensor and
Millington 2013). They do not seek sublime, provocative, or conceptual
stimulation; instead, they enjoy qualities such as brightness, color, anima-
tion, nostalgia, prettiness, liveliness, and humor, along with the many sym-
bolic references to popular culture.
Despite their appeal to this well-established constituency, factions and
agents in the local authority have agitated for change, arguing that the
Illuminations are outmoded and lack sophistication. Consequently, it is
claimed, they need to be supplemented with more “artistic” lighting that
will appeal to those likely to spend more money at the resort while helping
transform the image of Blackpool. Accordingly, in 2008, a group in the
Blackpool Illuminations department devised a “Festival of Light” intended
to showcase the creations of subcontracted artists who did not belong to
the design team located in the town. The program subsequently installed
several lighting attractions that contrasted with “traditional” designs.
Though these designs attracted a diverse range of opinions from visitors,
some positive, others less so, they were absorbed into the vital throng of the
Illuminations as a whole. Nevertheless, they represent an ongoing tension
between those who mobilize cultural capital by advocating the installation

of more “tasteful” and “artistic” light designs, and those who champion the
unique qualities of traditional and locally based forms of creativity.
Beverley Skeggs argues that the symbolic economy of class conflict con-
tinues to pervade everyday popular culture, and rather than being expressed
in industrial struggles, such contestations resonate through realms of popu
lar culture and consumption. Identities are thus continuously articulated
as selves, and others are represented in “a system of inscription, exchange,
perspective and value-laden attribution” (Skeggs 2004, 9). The aesthetic
judgments made about the Christmas light displays and Blackpool’s Illumi-
nations resonate with these identity-making processes and are character-
ized by anxious attempts to distinguish the self from the other.
Distribution of the Sensible

Ordinary Lighting
The organization of lighting, including the most mundane street lighting,
dazzling commercial signage, and pulsing advertisements, festive and fair-
ground illumination and domestic lamps, have developed from multiple
Figure 16. Detail from Alice in Wonderland tableau, Blackpool, 2011. This “traditional” design
is based on locally oriented style and popular culture rather than resulting from “artistic”
intentions. Photograph by the author.
decisions in which most people have had little say. These illuminations have
been devised by designers, fabricated by skilled and unskilled labor, installed
and maintained by electricians, produced by companies, advertised in trade
magazines and on websites, sold by retailers and wholesalers, preferred by
local authorities and commercial institutions, regulated by safety monitor-
ing agencies, and standardized by professional bodies. All these agents par-
ticipate in the making of particular decisions. Some are more influential
than others, but all act to instantiate procedures, codes, and habits that
bestow regularity on the world and foster the illusion that this is the way
things are and should be. Emphatically, this does not mean that nothing
changes, but that a host of agents—concerned with lighting in this case—
collectively endeavor to produce an equilibrium in which rules and regimes
are contingently held in place for a while, producing commonsense under-
standings and apprehensions of space. This is part of what Henri Lefebvre
(2002) terms the “quotidian.”
The power to shape the world in this way is captured in Jacques Ran-
cière’s conception of the distribution of the sensible. Rancière (2009, 13)
claims that politics “revolves around what is seen and what can be said
about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around
the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time.” This produces “the
configuration of a specific space, the framing of a particular sphere of expe-
rience, of objects posited as common and as pertaining to a common deci-
sion” (24). Accordingly, the political influences the production of the social
by orchestrating spaces and times, forging a sensual, material realm that
demarcates what is seen and unseen, smelled, heard, and touched. Rather
than form an understanding of the world before we inhabit it, these affec-
tive and sensory relationships shape how we perform and apprehend space
by inhabiting it. We become attuned to it by training our “senses, disposi-
tions and expectations” to accord with its shape and become competent in
“being able to initiate, imitate and elaborate skilled lines of action” (Ander-
son and Harrison 2010, 9).
In landscapes, the elements that can potentially attract our attention are
infinite. Accordingly, attention can be focused only on selective elements at
any moment. The designers of urban environments attempt to focus atten-
tion toward particular aspects. By daylight, memorials, retail spaces, and
iconic architecture are organized to draw attention away from multiple
other features in the general visual array, although the eye may alight on
many other aspects, from nearby textures and people to horizon and sky. At
night, however, the potential to scan space and discern multiple elements
in the landscape is diminished. Instead, selective illumination directs the

gaze toward lit objects, profiled against a gloomy backdrop from which
they stand out. Thus the design of space with artificial light produces land-
scapes in which “visual possibilities are shaped in advance” (Blumenberg
1993, 62). Illumination thereby guides action, sensation, and perception,
producing “spatio-temporal-perceptual complexes that invite and encour-
age some attentional engagements and inhibit others, that shape our atten-
tional performativity” (Hannah 2013, 242). It is therefore crucial to iden-
tify how power shapes what we attend to and ignore.
Illumination contributes to already existing spaces that offer contexts
for movement and inhabitation, soliciting certain maneuvers while deter-
ring others. It activates “predisposed routines, emotions and movements,”
generating the often unreflexive habitual practices and sensations that take
place in familiar space (Adey 2007, 444). Urban lighting configures space
according to distinct aesthetics, arrangements, luminosities, and colors
that shape the meanings, practices, affects, and sensations of those who
inhabit the nighttime city. We are guided down streets and paths chosen
for us by those who have determined where illumination is situated, and
how we feel is influenced by its spacing, intensity, and color. Legible, inter-
esting, or homelike lighting may encourage us to enter particular areas,
whereas spaces that are gloomy, glaring, or washed-out appear uninviting.
Artistic or enigmatic lights may lure us toward them to satisfy our curios-
ity, whereas others may warn us against approaching them or loom over
us threateningly. The design of nightscapes thus engenders affective and
sensory resonances that are part of the unreflexive inhabitation of place.
The practices through which illumination is deployed to make space
sensible is undergirded by professionally agreed standards that specify the
luminosity and direction of streetlights, technical measures that bypass
aesthetic considerations and spatial particularities. Rather, such standard-
ized, quantitative solutions are concerned with maximizing visibility, offer-
ing security, and enhancing feelings of safety, and tend to produce over
illuminated, homogeneous lightscapes (Major 2015). This is exemplified by
the German guidelines for traffic safety that follow industrial norms cir-
cumscribed by the photometric characteristics of streetlights. These guide-
lines recommend standards of brightness, uniformity, and glare but do not
mention energy efficiency, color, or design. However, as Katharina Krause
(2015) shows, these conventions are becoming outdated, with emergent
criteria for regulations reconfiguring the deployment of light.
Narrow conventions also inhere in advice dispensed about “appropri-
ate” lighting in the British state-sponsored document Manual for Streets

that provides authoritative guidance about street design (UK Depart-
ment for Transport 2007). The document was collectively produced by the
Department for Transport, the Department for Communities and Local
Government, and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environ-
ment (CABE), as well as selective private consultants. Key priorities focus
on how illumination should maximize a sense of security, refrain from
excess, distinguish between main and subsidiary streets, and avoid contrib-
uting to street clutter. In advising on qualities of intensity, height, scale,
and color, the document fails to acknowledge how innovative and unusual
lighting might have a place in street design. In focusing almost exclusively
on measurement and function, lighting is presented as a technical matter
subject to the expertise offered by engineers and electricians. The homoge-
neous street lighting that has emerged out of such standardizing processes
contrasts with the far more diverse streetlights of the 1950s that combined
functional with aesthetic qualities (The Quadhurst Project n.d.). In extend-
ing particular specifications across space, such regulatory programs shape
modes of sensing and paying attention. Yet in the UK, since local authori-
ties have considerable autonomy over the organization of street lighting,
many new models may result in a context in which energy reduction and
financial expenditure are emergent contemporary imperatives. Moreover,
since LEDs and more responsive forms of illumination are increasingly
adopted, the sensible will potentially be redistributed in more variegated
ways (Shaw 2014b).
The inequalities inscribed in the illuminated landscape discussed above
are an integral part of the normative staging of nocturnal space, part of
the distribution of the sensible through lighting. So too is the distinctive
distribution of the capitalist landscape, overtly devised to attract atten-
tion (Hannah 2013). Jonathan Crary (1999) argues that the modes of
distraction that so frequently configure us as individual consumers incul-
cate a habitual disposition to switch attention rapidly from one thing to
another. This perceptual adaptability, necessitated by the acceleration of
commodification, is also mobilized in the encounter with the urban com-
mercial landscape after dark, when flashing advertisements, logos, and illu-
minated spectacles solicit both attentiveness and distraction. A particularly
intensified switching may occur in hypercommercial sites such as Times
Square, where focus on any one of the animated signs or screens is dif-
ficult. Such shifts in attention are similarly solicited at other sites. Anne
Cronin (2006) discusses how advertisements are typically situated at busy
urban intersections where traffic temporarily slows or stops, exploiting the

rhythms with which people are aligned as they move across the city. Here,
the motorist shifts concentration from driving to the glaring hoarding or
screen, an experience intensified at night.
Illumination is also used to draw in consumers to shopping malls. In
the ION Orchard Shopping Mall in Singapore, besides the deployment of
“ambiance fragrancing,” lighting is integral to the design of an entrance
that takes the form of a huge glass cocoon. This passage from street to mall
engulfs pedestrians in the radiance emitted by LED walls programmed to
produce ever-changing colors and is followed by the play of light gener-
ated by media screens and reflective materials inside (Hudson 2015). Such
diverse applications of light, along with smooth surfaces, piped music, and
air conditioning, constitute “relatively unfocused inducements to shop,”
producing comfortable, mildly stimulating sensory and affective environ-
ments to which shoppers become attuned (Healy 2014, 35).
Powerful commercial and bureaucratic strategies through which the
sensible is (re)distributed invariably delimit the potential for more creative,
random, critical, and improvisational experiences. Yet the stability of illu-
minated environments is always threatened by the dynamic change that
capitalism heralds, whether through economic crisis or innovations, and
by failings of maintenance and repair, which if not persistently undertaken
lead to shabby appearances. Besides being susceptible to change and inef-
ficient application, these powerful strategies are supplemented by other
forms of illumination that challenge their sensory imperialism, such as the
artistic works discussed in the previous chapter. In addition, contemporary
developments are challenging the reinscription of standardized measure-
ments and unhindered commercial practices. Emergent technologies and a
growing concern with ecological considerations, excessive light pollution,
local diversity, and innovative aesthetics are stimulating a reconfiguring of
the sensible through illumination.
The Christmas light displays that transform neighborhoods also exem-
plify a compelling challenge to the usual appearance of the nocturnal urban
landscape, interrupting expectations and professional designs by imprint-
ing a usually invisible identity through illumination. Besides such vernacu
lar intrusions on the nightscape, light designers can unsettle habituated
apprehension through tactical guerrilla lighting that challenges bland,
technocratic illumination by using portable lumieres to temporarily trans-
form ordinary appearances. This is not simply an alternative professional
practice, however, for importance is placed on involving communities in
addressing their lighting desires and needs, to “rediscover, question and act
within their environment” by turning urban spaces into “a laboratory for
social engagement and aesthetic expression” (Light Collective 2015, 179).
Residents are invited to experimentally coproduce illuminated designs as an
alternative to professional imposition while broadening debates about pub-
lic lighting. Such projects are not merely pragmatic but produce affective
and sensory impacts that “provoke, intervene, and disrupt the established
regime of the sensible” (Berberich, Campbell, and Hudson 2013, 318).
Urban Screens and Projections

Complex Contestations
In this final section, I consider how questions about power and the distri-
bution of the sensible resonate through diverse contemporary perspec-
tives that account for the increasingly widespread use of urban screens,
distinctively new elements in the city’s lightscape. Urban screens are prop-
agating across cities, taking forms that range from advertisements, aug-
mented facades, information displays, live screening, and stage backdrops
to “experimental digital architecture” (Slaatta 2006).
Abigail Susik takes a pessimistic line in exploring how technological
innovations in projector design and digital culture have enabled the pro-
jection of high-definition moving images onto three-dimensional surfaces.
Susik argues that extending the power of commercial interests to saturate
the city with images threatens our ability to distinguish between actual
and virtual space. This could result in, she argues, a thoroughly media-
tized architecture that clothes the materiality of the city in images and
messages from multiple angles and planes, and exacerbates light pollution.
This will render the city illegible under a blizzard of mirages in which “all
surfaces and images become superficially equivalent, and the ghostly ‘pro-
jection’ may entirely conceal the identity and integrity of the object, site,
or being” (Susik 2012, 112). Electronic screens do not form part of a build-
ing’s memory in the way that frescoes or stained glass windows do; rather,
their restless, constantly changing imagery contributes to a dematerializa-
tion of architecture and to continuous ephemerality.
It does seem possible that such techniques will be appropriated in corpo-
rate advertising campaigns, as is already the case in settings such as Times
Square. In the future, this may become allied to the kinds of smart adver-
tising strategies that identify and address passing individuals via facial rec-
ognition, targeting them with tailored commercial messages and digital
advertisements based on their consumer profile, as featured in Minority
Report, the Hollywood science fiction movie that conjures up a surveillance-

saturated dystopia. Scott McQuire (2006) suggests that the experience of
the media city has already resulted in an environment that is consumed
in distraction and increasingly experienced as shifting, variable, and con-
tingent. Such mediatized realms, he contends, are configured by the mul-
tiple networks to which individuals are connected that interpenetrate the
city, eroding the potential for public space to serve as a venue for common
experience and social engagement. Though an expansion of the commer-
cial utility of urban screens undoubtedly raises the possibility of the kind
of urban saturation these authors suggest, their analysis also chimes with
repeated concerns about successive illuminated advertising landscapes
throughout the twentieth century. It also construes a somewhat pas-
sive recipient, subsumed by the power of the screen and helpless to avoid
uncritically consuming images.
These somewhat pessimistic views about the future outcomes of the con-
vergence of buildings and media technology contrast with other understand-
ings that foreground the potential for innovation and creativity (Slaatta
2006; Soltani 2011; Rofe and Stein 2011). These accounts celebrate the
potentially radical modification of urban morphology and the reconfigura-
tion of the city as a digital landscape. The prospects of ephemerality and
instability that concern critics are conversely conceptualized as offering
abundant promise for creativity and dynamism. For these writers, screen
technology offers new ways to consider the facades, walls, and surfaces of
buildings, as well as other features that can be subject to visual manipula-
tion. In combination with materials such as glass and plastic, buildings may
become variable, transitory objects, subject to ever-changing aesthetic and
informational effects. Such designs could foreground other qualities: color,
radiance, translucence, and the transmission of ideas and knowledge that
diverge from usual modes of sense making. The dynamic, mediatized city
would not be habitually apprehended but rather attract attention to fluid
aesthetic and sensory qualities, effects that would be amplified at night. The
phantasmagorical impact of the early modern city could thereby be restored
to urban experience. Furthermore, ways to apprehend and appreciate form,
materiality, history, and function could solicit awareness of architectural
qualities while also drawing out multisensual attributes. Amir Soltani
(2011, 75) contends that such developments may offer an opportunity for
designers, artists, and architects to “freely cross synthesize, explore, decon-
struct and let their imaginations flow.”
Exemplifying the potential of this digital technology, the Rundle Lantern
is a large media screen wrapped around a building on which computer-
Figure 17. Giant urban screen, Fremont Street Experience, Las Vegas, 2011. Is this an empty,
commodified spectacle or transformative, entertaining attraction? Photograph by the author.
controlled LEDs project images. Its installation at a busy central inter-

change in Adelaide, Matthew Rofe and Luke Stein (2011) maintain, has
reconfigured the spatial relations of the city. The striking, original designs
and artworks that play across its surface act as translocal conduits, glob-
ally transmitting local identity and receiving images and ideas from global
media flows, promoting a city with a rather staid reputation as cosmopoli-

tan, culturally and technologically innovative.
The enthusiastic responses to the possibilities that media screens prom-
ise can appear unduly optimistic; perhaps Zlatan Krajina provides a more
measured account. His ethnographic study focuses on how urban screens
are highly noticeable when first installed, but later simply blend into the
habitual apprehension of the city, becoming a somewhat inconspicu-
ous element in the lightscape (Krajina 2014). Inhabitants “domesticate”
such features while carrying out their everyday routines and incorporate
them into their familiar experiences. They thus become features glimpsed
while moving or that briefly distract passersby, and while at first they may
enchant or disorient the experience of place, they come to provide points of
orientation or tincture surroundings with their light. This is not to argue
that their effects vanish over time, for media screens that feature art or
advertising regularly change their content. Nevertheless, Krajina asserts
that along with the broader effects of contemporary media, as agents of
transmission they conjure up other places in an already connected, global-
ized world. As such, they form part of the “quotidian sceneographies” of
everyday urban life (8). There is no doubt that the installation of certain
media screens signifies strategies through which powerful interests shape
the distribution of the sensible in urban space. Yet Krajina’s analysis is
based on neither speculative assertions about consumer passivity nor cul-
turally populist assumptions about the liberating qualities of consumption.
Through his multisited ethnography, he demonstrates that people engage
with screens in various ways and, above all, accommodate them within
their everyday lives, refuting hyperbolic claims about both their potentially
dystopian and liberating effects.
Conclusion
The brief discussion about media screens suggests that the relationship
between light and power is dynamic and subject to contrasting and contest-
ing interpretations. I have demonstrated that power is multistranded and
inflects the deployment of light in many ways. Illumination has an overtly
functional use in strategic techniques that aim to control and monitor bod-
ies in space. It inscribes the unequal distribution of economic and social
power with unerring clarity, revealing through its glare the gilded realms
of the wealthy, iconic memorials, the might of the state, and the ubiquitous
urban dissemination of commerce; a lack of light or poor quality illumina-
tion often signifying the domains of the subjugated. Lighting championed
as stylish or beautiful is used in the acquisition of cultural capital, serv-

ing as a palpable positional good in situations where it is scarce—and in a
future in which ecologically beneficial lighting will become preeminent, the
possession of sustainable designs may heighten distinctions between rich
and poor (Hirsch 1977). Where illumination is deemed to lack aesthetic
value, it can be subject to symbolic violence. Less obviously, normative
lighting arrangements, through which the sensible is distributed, testify to
a dispersed, mundane form of power through which meanings and sensa-
tions become unreflexive manifestations of common sense.
In all these cases, however, illumination possesses no essential meaning
but becomes layered with contested interpretations, evaluations, and uses.
We might anticipate that as social life becomes suffused with increasingly
varied commercial, leisure, and working rhythms, lighting infrastructures
will respond to this diversity. Moreover, the intensification of specialist
market segmentation and proliferating identities is also likely to generate
a diversity of lighting forms that will decenter any authoritative deploy-
ments, values, and tastes.
Chapter 5 Festivals of Illumination:
Painting and Playing with Light
Enchanting Illumination
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European monarchs bedaz-
zled subjects with lavish, baroque displays of fireworks and theatrical illu-
minations, demonstrating their majesty and challenging religious power.
Though infrequent, such events transformed the overwhelming dark-
ness that pervaded these times, magnifying the power of the royal per-
sonage with light (Koslofsky 2011). Later and ironically, as Alice Barnaby
(2015) outlines, light was frequently part of the symbolic repertoire of vio
lent political protests and demonstrations in eighteenth-century cities. In
nineteenth-century London, however, it once more became a source of
perceptual delight in pleasure gardens and with the deployment of trans-
parencies to illuminate building facades during public commemorations.
In nineteenth-century Paris, fantastically lit theatrical stages and opulent
foyers were subsequently transmuted into the lavishly illuminated spaces
of the city’s commercial areas (Bressani 2015). These developments un-
derpin Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s (1988) assertion that while early illumi-
nation regulated efficient movement, consumption, and policing, the late
nineteenth century saw a broad shift from a lighting of order to a lighting
of festivity.
Gernot Böhme (2010, 29) contends that the development of lighting
is coterminous with the broader modern colonization of aesthetic expe-
rience into ever more spaces. The advent of “new perceptual pleasures”
was accompanied by “the technical mastery of light and sound, together
with the technical shaping of . . . materiality.” Along with telephony, film,
and photography, electric light has added to what Jo Collins and John Jer-
vis (2008, 1) term the phantasmagorical city, replete with “the shadowy
hauntings of the fleeting and insubstantial,” producing defamiliarization,
uncertainty, and fascination, constitutive aspects of modern experience.
109
110 Festivals of Illumination
These phantasmagorical attributes were extravagantly epitomized at world

trade fairs and theme parks. At New York’s Coney Island, Gary Cross (2006,
365) describes how “Luna Park and Dreamland created a dazzling architec-
tural fantasy of towers, domes and minarets, outlined by electric lights, giv-
ing these strange oriental shapes an even more mysterious and magical air
at night.” The extensive deployment of light to produce fantasy and pleasure
is exemplified by Scott McQuire’s (2008, 118) claim that at the end of the
nineteenth century, “the Chicago fairgrounds . . . contained more light than
any contemporary city in the United States.” At Blackpool Illuminations, a
profound theatricalization of space continues to invest space with oneiric,
otherworldly qualities. In this chapter, though, I exemplify how the current
use of illumination for pleasure and fantasy is most profoundly expressed by
the inexorable rise of light festivals. These proliferating events demonstrate
how the deployment of sophisticated technologies and ingenious creative
approaches heralds the advent of an era in which light enchants space, recon-
figures sensation, and deepens a sense of place in novel ways.
Contemporary light festivals vary in scale, duration, purpose, and form.
At the largest scale, Lyon’s Fête des Lumières, held annually over four nights
in early December, offers a complex panoply of displays, performances, and
projections that attract four million visitors. The festival uses computer-
generated projections tailored to specific buildings, light sculptures, and
an array of other techniques as part of a highly sophisticated program
that extends across the city. Sydney’s two-week VIVID festival is also large,
equally driven by innovative artistic design and technology, and other
extensive festivals are found in Prague, Montreal, Kobe, Singapore, and
Berlin. Smaller events take place in Durham, York, Eindhoven, Ghent, and
Helsinki, among other locations. These art-and design-led events contrast
with traditional and religious festivals that include the Chinese Lantern
Festival, the Burmese Thadingyut Festival that marks the end of a period of
abstinence, and the Thai Loi Krathong that incorporates processions, illu-
minated floating tributes, and the release of lanterns into the night sky. In
addition, an explosion of more recent community-based lantern parades
has emerged, encouraging practices of vernacular cultural creativity.
There are also events that are less easy to categorize, including Scotland’s
Enchanted Forest, which takes place in a rural setting.
Neoliberal Spectacles
Light festivals are inextricably entangled with neoliberal politics and eco-
nomics. The discussion harks back to the focus on media screens, a key
Festivals of Illumination 111
element in much festive provision. I subsequently refute these critiques

by focusing on the progressive potentialities of much festive illumination.
Festivalization has been conceived as a common instrument in promoting
the “creative city,” whereby creativity has become a key notion wielded to
valorize neoliberal forms of capitalist regeneration, deployed to summon
up a “creative class,” the “creative industries,” or “creative cities” (Florida
2005). In culture-led regeneration strategies, heritage, art, and leisure
become “experiences” to be consumed in “tourist resort areas, theme
parks, redeveloped water-fronts, trade expositions, mega-events, shopping
complexes, festival markets, art shows and galleries, opera halls and muse-
ums” (Gotham 2005, 227). As cities vie for inward investment, these place-
enhancing, culture-led strategies offer evidence of a “vibrant” location that
will attract tourists, shoppers, investors, and potential middle-class resi-
dents (Picard and Robinson 2006).
Since the 1980s, there has been a huge rise in the number of urban
arts festivals that increasingly serve to invigorate urban economies as “a
mainstay of urban tourism and urban policy-making” (Quinn 2010, 266).
Doreen Jakob points out that cities once organized large festivals to advance
their reputation, but now they foster a much more extensive process of
“eventification,” which has “infiltrated urban and economic development
on a much smaller scale.” She defines such events as the “deliberate organi-
zation of a heightened emotional and aesthetic experience at a designated
time and space” (Jakob 2012, 448). As Joseph Pine and James Gilmore
assert, places must stage experiences to add value to their economy, pro-
ducing urban space “as a spectacle and transformed into an aestheticized
place of consumption” (quoted in Jakob 2012, 449).
Joel McKim (2012, 130–31) exemplifies such strategies by referring to
Montreal’s Quartier des spectacles, which he describes as “a kind of public
showroom for the city’s expanding multimedia sector, while simultaneously
promoting an image of Montreal as the type of technologically developed,
creative, and design-intensive urban centre that is deemed attractive to for-
eign investment.” More widely, the development of the nighttime economy
has expanded times and places of commerce and commodification. In the
UK, Graeme Evans (2012, 36) estimates that nighttime activities “contrib-
uted £66 billion to the UK economy in 2009, employing 1.3 million people.”
Accordingly, culture-led regeneration strategies can provide real benefits,
including more diverse leisure provision, more job creation, more tour-
ists and investment, and more lively nocturnal atmospheres. These posi-
tive outcomes are emphasized by Salim Jiwa et al. (2009), in the case of
Nuit Blanche events in European and American cities, during which usu-
ally closed facilities open, live entertainment is staged, and light displays
are installed in urban centers that otherwise subside into inactivity after
nightfall.
While such events appear to draw diverse people together and generate
economic benefits, Kevin Fox Gotham (2005, 226) is more critical, arguing
that such cultural redevelopments are akin to a “carnival mask” that covers
continuing disinvestment and increasing social inequality, and moreover,
incessantly recycles “familiar themes for passive consumers.” Rather than
prioritizing the enhancement of life for residents, he regards these strate
gies as instrumental, neoliberal, competitive endeavors geared to Darwin-
ian interurban competition and the expanding gentrification of urban
space that privilege only certain classes. These competitive imperatives,
according to Bernadette Quinn (2010, 266), produce tensions between
creative and economic objectives, as artists are obliged to produce works
that attract large crowds, seeking common denominators that satisfy key
economic stakeholders. Indeed, McKim (2012, 130) contends that the task
of animating public spaces increasingly devolves to designers, and he asks:
Does the required skill set of the public artist now include such attributes as
the ability to remain highly attuned to client branding initiatives, the willing-
ness to compromise and adjust to variable circumstances, and the capacity
to generate maximum impact while ideally remaining free of controversy?
Quentin Stevens and Hae Ran Shin (2014) similarly acknowledge that
many large urban festivals are highly organized, tightly scripted, and domi-
nated by large, spectacular events instrumentally staged for political and
economic gain.
Thus, what may emerge are events replete with aesthetic conventions
circulated by the aforementioned international “creative class” and par-
ticular urban “designscapes” typified by Guy Julier (2005, 874) as a col-
lection of “brand design, architecture, urban planning, events and exhi-
bitions.” Emerging out of international urban networks, such schemes
impose generic designs on places that resonate with the shared tastes of
members of the creative class. Gotham (2005, 234) similarly contends that
“whereas the appeal of local celebrations is the opportunity to see some-
thing different, celebrations that are redesigned to attract tourists seem
more and more alike.” Such critiques infer that generic spectacles even-
tuate, as “cultural substance becomes replaced with cultural spectacle,”
and “increasing homogeneity and declining creativity” result, as “cultural
strategies fail to connect with the specificities of the places within which
they are located” (Quinn 2010, 271–72).
These arguments chime with those that insist that we now live in a
“society of the spectacle” in which spectators passively behold seductive,
extravagant displays organized by capital and the state that have replaced
“authentic” life (Debord 1994). Characterized as a new stage in the devel-
opment of capitalism, the society of the spectacle shifts from manufac-
turing commodities to producing images, and is dominated by advertis-
ing, mass media, and other culture industries while stimulating consumer
desires. As social relations become increasingly mediated by commodified
images, estrangement becomes pervasive (Ward 2001). Such spectacles
bedazzle the public, limiting individuals’ ability to perceive the “real” con-
ditions that underlie their enslavement as workers and consumers. Dis-
tracted by fantasies that pacify and seduce, spectators’ scope for critical
thought is diminished.
For Gotham (2005, 242), spectacular festivals are largely informed by
“hegemonic ideologies . . . promotional rhetoric, corporate advertising” that
attempt to transform urban space “into an aesthetic product symbolizing
consumption, leisure and entertainment.” Consumers confront and expe-
rience such spectacles as external forces that constitute them as “atomized
consumers rather than as collective and creative beings” (235). Moreover,
unlike medieval festivals and carnivals at which an intense immersion pro-
duced an overwhelming, immanent experience, contemporary festivals are
time-tabled to fit into work and consumption schedules. Though they ges-
ture toward a shared public space, this realm has been privatized, commer-
cialized, and subject to surveillance. Encapsulating such contentions with
specific regard to light festivals, Heather Diack (2012, 11) draws on the
Nuit Blanche events. She describes them as dominated by “an extravaganza
of electronic and digital media” that generates a spectacle so powerful that
it pulls those who experience it “towards machine-like states of attention,
objectification, and endurance.” This feeds what she calls the “attention
economy,” as creative leisure is supplanted by distraction and absorption
in spectacle.
These critiques undoubtedly offer plausible arguments about the com-
mercialism, spectacularity, placelessness, compromised creativity, and
generic design of festivals, including light festivals. The intensified com-
mercialization and regulation of festivals can diminish communal expres-
sions, as with the English celebration of Bonfire Night, which has become
a series of “ticketed and seated charitable events as a way to control the
crowds” (Dalmasso 2013, 80). An absorbing, convivial, neighborly event

has been transformed into a paid spectacle, replacing the shared staging of
bonfires and fireworks in corners, back gardens, and waste ground. Other
festivals similarly resemble somewhat empty spectacles. For instance,
the New Year firework display of 2015 that cascaded from Dubai’s Burj
Khalifa, the world’s highest building, while astonishing in scale and effect,
seemed to incarnate pure, excessive spectacularity. So too, perhaps, does
Hong Kong’s Symphony of Lights (Petty 2015).
But even such illuminated spectacles offer sensual effects and generate
pulsating illuminated atmospheres, constituting a basis for shared enjoy-
ment and conviviality. Moreover, although such productions resonate with
intensified commodification, proliferating eventification, and the them-
ing of urban space (Gottdiener 1997; Hannigan 1998), notions of passive
spectatorship construe automatons, denying the creativity and reflexivity
of an active audience (Barker 1999). The capacity of onlookers to interpret
what they see in numerous ways, irrespective of the meanings encoded
into the forms on which they gaze, is denied (Hall 2001).
Despite critiquing the commercial tendencies of festivals, Gotham con-
siders it inapposite to construe audiences as subject to “a condition of qui-
escence, atomisation, stupefaction and conformity.” As he adds, urban
festivals may be “discursive fields of contestation and struggle” that can
“express power relations” and can “generate antagonistic mobilisations
to challenge the urban status quo” (Gotham 2011, 201). Festivals have
the potential to offer alternative, critical, and creative locally oriented
responses that militate against homogeneous and dominant outcomes.
Moreover, light festivals are not only organized by those promoting a crea
tive city agenda but also emerge from bottom-up, community-led initiatives
that involve local organizational skills and vernacular creativity.
The negative, pessimistic arguments outlined above carry some force
but provide a one-sided understanding of festivals in general, and light fes-
tivals in particular. In developing a sustained analysis of the rich potentiali-
ties that light festivals offer, I now focus on how various installations, pro-
jections, and modes of festive lighting can promote productive encounters.
Accordingly, I identify four key processes, drawing on participant obser-
vation and interpretation of installations. First, I discuss how in various
ways, festive light installations can thoroughly defamiliarize the spaces to
which we are socially, sensually, and perceptually accustomed. In chap-
ter 3 I focused on how particular light applications enhanced a sense of
place; the second theme expands this exploration of place-making capaci
ties, investigating how festive illumination represents historical and cul-

tural dimensions, and deepens a sense of belonging. Third, I look at how
lighting techniques invite various forms of interactivity that transform the
usual engagement with place and repudiate suspicions of spectator passiv-
ity. Finally, I examine how festivals bring together constellations of artistic
creativity, technical expertise, and public design, offering opportunities to
experiment, test potentially useful technologies, and share ideas and skills.
Defamiliarization
The routine practices of inhabitants, businesses, government, workers,
students, and visitors characteristically undergird normative understand-
ings about the meaning and function of familiar places, and in this repe
tition, the sensing of the everyday world is also made familiar, becoming
ingrained in bodies. Festivals tend to be short, but they break up these nor-
mative quotidian rhythms. In marking out a temporary departure from
these routines, festivals constitute a period during which ordinary conven-
tions and social interactions may be suspended and participants allowed
greater license for expressive, creative, and improvisational behavior (Eden-
sor 2010). Most current festivals cannot be compared to the medieval car-
nivals during which ordinary hierarchies were overturned in liminal time
and space, the sacred could be profaned, and corporeal excess and the gro-
tesque were celebrated, although the carnival’s function was regarded as
an essential safety valve that reinforced the social order (Bakhtin 1984).
Contemporary festivals offer a more provisional relaxation of everyday
expectations and may be characterized as “liminoid,” pertaining to limin-
ality. There is somewhat of an overturning of the usual order of things,
but excessively expressive physical and social behavior would be deemed
out of place, as would any attempt to temporarily overthrow the power-
ful. Because festivals are ephemeral events that do not colonize space, are
on the move, or only linger awhile, they are unlikely to change the endur-
ing meanings and uses of space. However, in temporarily challenging,
augmenting, or revealing overlooked qualities, festivals do offer opportu-
nities for practicing, representing, and apprehending place in ways at vari-
ance to habitual experience. Light possesses a particularly rich capacity
to defamiliarize familiar places, transforming what is well known into an
uncanny realm and thereby suggesting that place may be apprehended
otherwise. This can potentially produce a reflexive critique toward conser-
vative attempts to inscribe place with an essential identity while revealing
the partiality and specificity of human modes of perception.
I have already discussed how buildings act as screens on which digitally

mapped images are projected. Digital mapping techniques allow software
to “map out points of interface with the spatial coordinates of the existing
structure,” using specific architectural features—windows, niches, cornices,
columns, and arches (Susik 2012, 115). Site-specific projections can alter
the usual apprehension of the building, transforming color and animat-
ing textures and forms with novel resonances. Often, effects are deployed to
dematerialize buildings or create illusions that their materiality has changed.
This is illustrated by a large projection staged in the capacious Place des Ter-
reaux that serves as a key venue during Lyon’s Fête des Lumières.
The display, Jouons avec les temps (Playing with time), devised by the
designer Marie-Jeanne Gauthé, lasted nearly ten minutes and covered the
buildings on two sides of the imposing square, accompanied by a powerful
soundtrack. As the image of a clock ticked relentlessly on one side of the
square and a metronome moved back and forth on the other, the buildings
were subjected to a plethora of weather effects that ceaselessly mutated their
surfaces. At first, snow swirled across the facades, then froze the building,
shards cracked away from the facades, and the whole structure appeared
to shatter as a blizzard whirled across. The icescape then devolved into a
water-filled scene with bubbles and blocks of ice coursing upward where
they solidified into icicles. Forks of lightning followed an intermittent pas-
sage where silhouetted figures cavorted across the facade, and then waves
of heat assailed the building, causing it to buckle, becoming fluid in form, at
which point it melted, as if made of soft wax. Then the apparently melted
structure reassembled as pieces of ash cascaded upward, successively slot-
ting into place. Next came pouring rain, as figures with umbrellas floated
down and a rainbow briefly emerged, spreading its vibrant hues across the
surface. The rain nurtured plants that grew luxuriantly upward, twining
around the structure and bursting into flower. After assuming a melted
appearance once more, the building rose into being. All went dark before
the vertical and horizontal lineaments of the buildings were etched out with
white lines and yet another change transformed the facades into collections
of puddles into which raindrops created ripples that circled outward before
evaporating. A final, somewhat dystopian passage saw the clock fall and
time become suspended or finished, as uncanny eddies played across the
facade during the end times, a catastrophe caused by global warming.
Other digital mapping displays make buildings appear to crumble, float,
burn, become transparent, and evaporate, or simply serve as the surface
for the abstract play of color, light, and manifold shapes. In blurring the
Figure 18. Melting building, sequence in the projection, Jouons avec les temps, Place des
Terreaux, Fête des Lumières, Lyon, 2010. This example shows how digital mapping can
defamiliarize buildings through transforming perception about their solidity and material
constitution. Photograph by the author.
real and virtual in these phantasmal configurations, such multiple, shifting

effects can disrupt the usual cognitive understanding and sensual appre-
hension of a familiar building, besides revealing more acutely its compo-
sitional form and infrastructure. Here, the playful representation of the
action of weather on a material structure over time offers a serious reve
lation: that the material world is continuously being altered by the agen-
cies that assail it from within and without. Though such transformations
occur much more slowly in the real world, wind, moisture, ice, and sun,
along with the work of plants and animals, continually undermine the illu-
sory solidity that buildings manifest (Edensor 2011). Besides its compelling
force, the display has a serious thrust, namely, that the precariousness of
all material things is especially threatened by global warming.
A somewhat different case of defamiliarization, from Durham’s 2013
biannual Lumiere festival, concerned a red public telephone box of tradi-
tional, iconic design, placed in the city’s Market Square. The phone box
was transformed into a glowing aquarium, its interior lit from within to
produce a brilliant blue scene of live fishes and green plants in the evening
murk. These vivid colors were accentuated by its setting, the creators Bene-
detto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille juxtaposing the cold, gray November set-
ting of the square with allusions of faraway places and summer travel. In
taking a familiar feature of quotidian British life and converting it into an
aquarium, the designers produced a surrealistic experience but also sug-
gested that these almost obsolete elements of the urban fabric might have
alternative uses. In an era when most people communicate via mobile
phone, such outmoded fixtures could provide welcome enhancements in
public space. Indeed, visitors commented that after seeing the work, they
found it difficult to look at a phone box without recalling this sight.
A different way of using everyday objects to dislocate perceptions and
expectations is to reproduce them at very different scales. Since 2010,
a giant string of thirty-one vintage Christmas lights fitted with LEDs,
devised by PRG Scenic, has been installed during the festive season in
front of the McGraw Hill Building on Sixth Avenue in New York. Together
with the equally giant baubles that lie alongside, these striking lights
recall the gigantic modernist sculptures of Claes Oldenburg that offer a wry
critique of consumerism and commodity fetishism. Besides making a fes-
tive link to the everyday homes in which the usual-sized versions of such
lights are displayed, the fixtures draw attention to their usually overlooked
form and the quality of the radiance they dispense. They animate the busy
sidewalk in the heart of midtown and constitute a temporary gathering
place for locals and tourists. Installations such as this and Aquarium liter-
ally constitute what Walter Benjamin (1997, 173) calls “profane illumina-
tions,” through which “a person perceives the most ordinary, overlooked
objects of everyday reality . . . as uncanny, supernatural, and irrational.”
Other forms of inventive defamiliarization critically reveal the norma-
tive workings of power and unreflexive, commonsense practices. Johanne
Sloan (2015) describes Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky’s All Night
Convenience, a work installed in a Toronto shop in September 2012, and
a one-off event in which the artists constructed and hand-assembled two
thousand individual “commodities” with LED lights inserted into their inte-
riors. These illuminated, hollowed-out products not only lacked the weight
and feel of actual commodities and hence disrupted sensory expectations;
they also undermined their appearance as commodities because they were
free to take away as a curious form of lantern.
These examples are all concerned with the defamiliarization of urban
settings, yet illumination can also be deployed in rural environments to
Figure 19. Benedetto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille’s Telephone Box Aquarium defamiliarizes
a city square and suggests alternative uses for almost obsolete elements of the urban fabric.
Durham Lumiere, 2013. Reproduced courtesy of Benedetto Bufalino.
Figure 20. Giant vintage Christmas lights, designed by PRG Scenic, McGraw Hill Building,
Sixth Avenue, New York City, 2014. Common lighting forms are defamiliarized through
enlargement. Photograph by the author.
deliver a profoundly unusual encounter with the countryside. The three-

week-long Enchanted Forest takes place at Faskally Wood near Pitlochry
in Perthshire, Scotland, in autumn. Initiated in 2002, it annually attracts
around thirty thousand visitors, who follow a trail through the wood. The
festival is staged in a mixed woodland in which the usual sensual and sym-
bolic apprehension of the forest is made strange by lighting techniques

and choreographed sound, confounding previous sensory encounters
with woodland. The disorienting capacities of illumination to transform
the apprehension of place are thus particularly apparent at the Enchanted
Forest. The event radically challenges normative romantic values associ-
ated with rural landscapes and forests, as well as with the usual encounters
with rurality after nightfall, where gloom generally impedes any movement
through space, and when people do move, they use torchlight. Indeed, few
people are drawn to the darkened moor, valley, or forest after the sun has
set, and long-pervasive mythic associations of lurking danger and super-
natural encounter testify to residual fears of darkness.
Consequently, an encounter with illuminated nature is deeply unfa-
miliar, for the rural is often conceived as a realm in which tradition per-
sists and in which modernity—and modern illumination—has only par-
tially intruded. In rural settings at night, colors are indistinguishable, as
everything merges into a gray and subsequently black accumulation. Here,
though, lighting transforms what is by day a forest scene composed of mul-
tiple shades and hues of green and brown into a multicolored panoply,
making a strange scene for both those accustomed to woodland in daylight
and those habituated to the nocturnal forest. Lights flicker high in trees,
act as a brilliantly colored backdrop to darker silhouettes, vividly illuminate
particular trees, take the form of fabulous beasts, reveal steps and paths, or
light up fountains that gush out of the loch in the woods, all effects that ren-
der the experience of woodland peculiar. Music and other recorded sounds
waft through the arboreal space, supplementing the air of unreality.
Modes of looking in dark space are conditioned by a greater scrutiny to
what lies around and ahead, unlike the scanning of the landscape that is
mobilized by day, where the eye roams across space and can easily chart
the way ahead. At night, by contrast, the eye is drawn to patches or points
of light that punctuate the darkness. Where darkness makes progress dif-
ficult, a torch is generally used, and its beam produces a linear stream of
light that might illumine the path ahead and adjacent elements, but all that
lies on either side is shrouded in gloom. However, in the Enchanted Forest,
colored lights stage a theatrical vista composed of unfolding layers. This is
not a scene that could be apprehended by day, and it provides a depth that
contrasts greatly with the usual perception of a rural landscape at night,
which takes the form of a dark gathering of indistinguishable mass.
Even more startlingly, the lighting techniques in the forest separate par-
ticular trees from their companions, exploiting the rural darkness. By day,
the wood appears as a dense accumulation of leaves and shrubbery, where
Figure 21. Illuminated tree, Enchanted Forest, Perthshire, Scotland, 2012. The tree, tinted with
an unfamiliar hue, stands out from the dark background against which its form is strikingly
revealed. Photograph by the author.
each tree melds into the other in a collective effusion, often making it dif-
ficult to discern the individuality of one tree or bush from another. Strik-
ingly, through focused illumination in the Enchanted Forest, the architec-
ture of a tree can be grasped in a way it could not in daylight. Here, the
shapely uniqueness of any one oak, beech, or birch tree can be illuminated
against a dark backdrop, simultaneously defamiliarizing woodland and
more acutely revealing its individual living constituents. The capacity of
illumination to separate a form from its surroundings offers an alternative
mode of perceiving, allowing a visual focus on form and texture that fosters
appreciation of the separate constituents of the world.
Finally, defamiliarization through illumination can be especially effective
when it causes viewers to question the efficacy of their own senses, to reflect
on what exactly it is that they are seeing. One of the most arresting instal-
lations at Sydney’s 2014 VIVID festival was Galaxia III, an ever-changing
rectangle full of shifting geometric patterns of light that produced a riot of
optical effects. The work was situated in an unprepossessing shop front in
the Circular Harbour, but charged this mundane space with kinetic energy.
Created by Alan Rose (Alan Rose Art), Galaxia III resonates with the op art
of the 1960s and 1970s, created by artists less concerned with produc-
ing representations of landscapes, still lives, or figures than with focusing
on ideas and the relationship of a piece to the viewer. Moreover, like Car-
los Cruz-Diez’s Chromosaturation, their works were not devised to convey
the artist’s emotions but aimed to investigate the perceptual and mental
responses of the viewer. Simon Rycroft (2005, 355) contends that the work
was “a generator of perceptual responses, possessing a dynamic quality
which provoked illusory images and sensations in the spectator,” thereby
focusing attention on the specific capacities of human vision and bringing
into doubt the veracity and accuracy of what is seen. The confusing visual
sensations produced by gazing on a static work by Bridget Riley and see-
ing the illusory appearance of its movement are amplified and intensified
by Rose’s adoption of light to further explore optical effects. The two colors
that make up the 924 individual squares of the rectangular checkerboard
pattern of Galaxia III actually do perpetually change, a dynamic process
of color transformations and radiant luminosity that produces an endless
riot of illusions, distortions, and mirages. Rose emphasizes that a key aim
of such works “is to induce a mental state—where the viewer goes from
there is up to the individual imagination.” He contends that with Galaxia
III, “there has to be some confusion . . . the opposing colours change so
slowly that the viewer can’t quite remember what it looked like ten seconds
ago.” Rose develops this theme:
the slowly changing colours and varying block shapes produce kinetic effects
which are designed to induce transformative mind states. The works give the
initial illusion of random forms, but with the passing of time the completely
ordered geometry is perceived. In this way they are situated between order
and chaos, and hopefully compel the viewer to contemplate them for an
extended period, maybe conjuring up personal narratives.
In confronting this work, we question whether what we are seeing is accu-

rate or whether our eyes are playing tricks on us. This makes us wonder
further about how we see with light. Do others perceive this work as we do?
As discussed in chapter 1, we perceive the world through culturally
located modes of sensory experience and conceptualization, according to
norms that prescribe what is sensually desirable and acceptable; thus “we
not only think about our senses, we think through them” (Classen 1993, 9).
The defamiliarization staged through the application of light can solicit
alternative ways in which it might be engaged with sensorially, thus criti-
cally challenging how the sensible is distributed in constituting a common-
sense realm of perception.
Accordingly, light festivals have the potential to engender what Jane
Bennett (2001, 5) calls “re-enchantment,” offering encounters that render
one “transfixed, spellbound,” not merely through being charmed and
delighted but through experiencing the more uncanny sensation of “being
disrupted or torn out of one’s default sensory-psychic-intellectual dispo-
sition.” Inventive festive illumination converts local settings into another
kind of space and time, so that the feeling and meaning of familiar, quo-
tidian realms are altered by temporary (re)design. Thus perception can be
revealed as partial, habitual, and culturally informed when a familiar site
is swathed in light and color, perhaps making it temporarily unheimlich, but
simultaneously revealing unheralded, overlooked aspects. Enchantment
can thus be reinstalled in festive illuminated landscapes, recapturing the
oneiric dimensions of earlier modern nocturnal space.
Such encounters with the dreamlike, surreal, and strange foster what
Martyn Evans (2012) terms “wonder,” which he characterizes as an
“altered, compellingly intensified attention” that saturates experience in
the moment through which the world is made newly present to us. Under
conditions of such intensified perception, we attend more intently to the
previously overlooked or undervalued. The challenging experiences of see-
ing familiar space in novel ways also temporarily transforms place by com-
municating amazement, pleasure, and amusement, contributing to what
Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick (2012, 36) term “the nocturnal carni-
valesque,” which “defamiliarizes the city as well as opens it up to alternative
interpretations and possibilities.”
Festivals produce situations in which the usual “spatial functionali
ties become hidden and forgotten, signs become meaningless, directions

reverse, boundaries cease to bound and the mundane is decorated and
disguised and overtaken by different rituals and practices” (Picard and
Robinson 2006, 11). This resonates with the Situationist strategies of
détournement through which the habitual and the taken-for-granted are
made strange (Knabb 2006). Yet rather than an obscure practice for a
select few initiates, light festivals democratize the critical potential sparked
by making the ordinary weird. The examples discussed here show how light
festivals have the potential to make us see the world otherwise, to grasp
that there is no innate reason why the usual arrangements should persist,
that there are innumerable other ways of sensing the world, and that com-
mon sense can be overrated.
Place Making
While the production of defamiliarization through illumination might
seem to alienate people from a sense of belonging, it may contribute to a
deepening of the experience of place. In offering previously unanticipated
ways of apprehension, soliciting perceptions that expand the capacities
for imagining and sensing place otherwise, such approaches extend the
compendium of ways of seeing. In this section, I focus on more specific
approaches through which designers and artists contribute to place mak-
ing and enhance belonging at light festivals. While the instrumental place-
making endeavors of planners, government officials, and business elites
might appear crass, at light festivals, temporary works that respond to the
history and culture of place have the potential to expand affective, sensory,
and cognitive belonging.
One approach to festive light design is to conjure up references to his-
tories that foment “a sense of belonging to and understanding of places,
giving new meanings so that territories are repossessed” (Alves 2007,
1259). A salient example is provided by another large projection work at
the 2009 Fête des Lumières in Lyon, digitally mapped onto the facade of the
iconic, medieval Cathédrale St-Jean-Baptiste. The ten-minute display, Les
Bâtisseurs (The builders), told a story about the creation of the building
itself. At the start, to the strains of classical music, an animated sequence
summoned up the forest that was cleared to make way for the city, depict-
ing the plants and butterflies that formerly swarmed there. After this, a
preexisting, sixth-century church was superimposed on the current build-
ing and then shown to collapse. Thereafter, the display showed how, with
slide rule and ruler, the hand of the draftsman sketched out the architec-
tural design of the twelfth-century church. Subsequently, the carpenters,
masons, and haulers who brought the stone to the site featured, aug-
mented with the sound of chisels being struck and horse-drawn carts, and
then were replaced by the construction workers who drew up the stone
blocks to the top of the cathedral with cranes and pulleys. Later, the hand
of the architect returned, as more elaborate, ornate decorations changed
the character of the building from Romanesque to Gothic, and the bell was
hauled to the tower’s belfry as the building assumed its current form. Testi-
mony was paid to the design of the famous fourteenth-century astronomi-
cal clock inside the cathedral. Finally, the architectural designs were drawn
aside to reveal the current architectural composition. Lights situated dis-
creetly in the building highlighted key attributes, the towers and pilasters,
the tracery of the circular rose windows, and the gargoyles, screens, and
balustrades.
In folding together different times and spaces, the projection focuses on
how architectural designs and manual toil were integral to the cathedral’s
emergence and ongoing transformation over the centuries. Besides deep-
ening a historical appreciation of this construction, the display also con-
jures up a sensory feel for the past, with sounds of labor and hard physical
endeavor honoring forgotten laborers and artisans. In addition, the display
skillfully uses intense illumination to herald the cathedral’s key architec-
tural features. Though it confirms the importance of the building’s iconic
status to Lyon, the work reveals that neither place nor building possesses
any essential qualities but is continuously emergent; some parts are added
to the structure while other bits are subtracted. This necessitates the forg-
ing of new connections with places for the supply of replacement stone and
the endless tasks of maintenance and repair, essential processes required
to ensure that places endure as discrete material entities (Edensor 2011).
Another example is provided by the Czech group Macula’s geometry-
aligned projection onto Liverpool’s iconic Liver Building in 2011 to cele-
brate its one hundredth anniversary, which used its planes, axes, and struc-
ture. The display underpinned the building’s iconic value but evoked the
port’s checkered history. Initially, an early castle was projected onto the
lower part of the building, replete with silhouetted carts and human fig-
ures, but these were subsequently overshadowed by a huge, spectral incar-
nation of the grim reaper as the Black Death, breathing pestilence over the
settlement. To symbolize Liverpool’s emergence as an imperial port, a ship’s
prow thrust through the lower center of the building, followed by a visceral
portrayal of chained, trudging slaves. The industrial revolution was con-
noted by the building’s conversion into a machinic assemblage compris-
ing pistons and trains. The city then reemerged, assembled out of imported
cargo, with a host of laboring workers manufacturing the ocean liners that
superseded the sailing ships of earlier times. Following this were the sounds
of the Blitz, as the port was subjected to heavy German aerial bombing in
World War II, a smoky scene that finally mutated into images and sounds
of the Beatles. Some of the key processes that contributed to the histori-
cal emergence of Liverpool were dramatized, focusing on the city’s unique
heritage but also highlighting how it has been ceaselessly recomposed out
of its connections with other places across time and space. In identifying
the Europe-wide pandemic of the Black Death, the foundation of the port’s
economic power through the slave trade, the huge flow of ships and goods
to and from many parts of the world, the city’s entanglement in World
War II, and the global export of the renowned Beatles, the projection fore-
grounds how Liverpool, like everywhere else, is continuously reconstituted
out of its relationships with multiple elsewheres (Massey 1993).
Besides these grand historical narratives, more specific historical events
can be effectively commemorated by different techniques of illumination.
During November 7–9, 2014, Berlin celebrated the twenty-fifth anniver-
sary of the fall of the Wall with a light installation that first retraced and
then re-erased the structure that separated the two parts of the city from
1961 to 1989. The Lichtgrenze, literally translating as “the border of light,”
created by Christopher Bauder and Marc Bauder, consisted of eight thou-
sand white rubber balloons tethered to slender carbon poles at the top of
which were LEDs that gave the impression that the balloons were illumi-
nated from within (“25 Years Fall of the Wall” 2014). Following fifteen
kilometers of the path of the Wall, the Lichtgrenze prompted thousands of
Berliners and visitors to hike along the former border after dark. At inter-
vals, historic film footage was projected on screens along with historical
testimony. After two nights, the installation culminated in its own dissolu-
tion: each helium-filled balloon was released by its very own Ballonpate—
“balloon patrons”—as part of a synchronized sequence. No longer illumi-
nated, they disappeared against the overcast sky, symbolizing the Wall’s
obsolescence and the merging of East and West Berlin.
Other works foreground forgotten or marginalized histories. A tempo-
rary work, Impermanence, was staged at Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne
in 2014 by Yandell Walton (2014). This disused Catholic convent, now a
community center, formerly served as one of the now notorious “Magda-
lene laundries,” where young “fallen women,” unmarried mothers and
miscreants, ended up under the sway of the nuns, who subjected them
to strict, sometimes cruel treatment. Before and after World War II, these
young women worked in the laundries, carrying out their duties alongside
the holy sisters. The elegiac light projection honors these former inhabit-
ants in a currently derelict wing that lies open to the sky and is blocked off
from public access by a thick wire mesh. Walton’s projection tracked the
accelerated movement of daylight across the room and, simultaneously,
the movements of two shadowy figures, a gliding nun and a young woman
running in slow motion. The piece captured the dull routine of the laundry
work and religious observance while contrasting the bodily movements of
those who worked here, the sedate progress of the nun and the running
girl, joyous in movement or maybe trying to escape.
Keyframes, devised by Groupe LAPS for the 2013 Durham Lumiere fes-
tival, honored the disappearing heavy industries of the northern cities of
England. Jiving along to a version of Lee Dorsey’s Working in a Coal Mine,
by Durham County Youth Big Band, were eighty LED stickmen who danced
across the facade of the former Durham Miners’ Hall, now a nightclub. The
work referenced the building’s historical role as a center for miners’ social
and political activity, and more melancholically, the subsequent demise of
the region’s coal-mining industry. These displays insert into the history of a
place those who have been forgotten, “primarily unseen and banished to the
periphery of our social graciousness,” and acknowledge key events in the
making of place that may be a source of shame or loss (Gordon 1997, 196).
Besides being deployed to highlight the forgotten histories and sites
of places, light can also be manipulated to provide new perspectives on
urban areas or buildings that may be overlooked or reviled. At Sydney’s
2014 VIVID festival, a somewhat unpopular brutalist building, the circu-
lar Commercial Travellers Association Building at the MLC Centre in Mar-
tin Place, was digitally mapped in the Urban Tree Project, devised by Ample
Projects. The slender single column and three-storied cylinders that make
up the building’s unusual form were adapted to take on the appearance of
a tree that started to grow from ground level, until completely subsuming
the building, becoming populated with animals and blossoming flowers.
Besides defamiliarizing this structure and its setting, the comparison of the
building to a tree stimulated a renewed appreciation of its curious, unique
shape. The tree also referred to the bushland environment that preceded
the development of Sydney, perhaps looking forward to a time when the
city will once more be taken over by vegetation, reminding onlookers about
the changing nature of place over the long term.
These examples highlight how light festivals are occasions when the
Figure 22. Impermanence, Yandell Walton, Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, 2014. Shadowy
figures from a marginalized history flit across the space of a former convent. Devised by,
photographed by, and courtesy of Yandell Walton.
multiple qualities of place can be represented. This is especially pertinent

with regard to how processes of globalization, it is often lamented, repro-
duce a cultural and spatial homogeneity that blurs the distinctions between
places. Accordingly, festivals such as those discussed above offer occasions
at which “individuals and groups can discursively manifest their visions
of the world and create meaningful frameworks of their being together,”
transmitting identities, cultural practices, and values to locals and outsid-
ers (Picard and Robinson 2006, 12). The ways in which a sense of place is
deepened, complicated, and enriched in these examples are ephemeral and
express no desire to fix place identity, but they do propose critical perspec-
tives about the meaning of places and their futures. Rather than a rigid,
didactic heritage that reifies the import of particular historical characters
and events, they offer a sensuous, imaginative engagement with the past
that also puts back into place those that are in danger of being forgotten.
Instead of grand, grave ceremonial events, these are informal and playful
forms of commemoration. And in drawing attention to neglected spaces
and unloved structures, they activate critical perspectives toward domi
nant aesthetic values. It is clear that these creative approaches to place
making are not synonymous with the branding and marketing efforts that
emerge out of interurban competition and end up producing homogeneous

and unsurprising places.
Interactivity
Fostering Conviviality
A further key role of festive illumination is that it invites interactivity and
public participation in ways that transform what may often be quiet, inac-
tive public spaces into settings where conviviality, playfulness, and an
expressive letting-go temporarily take hold. These include the traditional
festivities mentioned above, the Chinese Lantern Festival, Thadingyut, and
Loi Krathong. Mike White (2009) depicts such parades as occasions when
social inclusion, community participation, network building, and the reaf-
firming of bonds prosper, with people of various ages and backgrounds
who are usually unlikely to collaborate with each other. These events can
provide a source of well-being and self-esteem, and develop creative skills.
Such empowerment, as well as cultural revitalization, has taken place at
Hoi An, a Vietnamese port town that increasingly gains economic benefit
from mass tourism. Though an “invented tradition,” the monthly Lantern
Festival has been adopted by locals to suit their own values and in accor-
dance with their own cosmologies and place in the world. According to
Michael di Giovine, the parades bring locals into a more equal relationship
with tourists. Modern illumination, including vehicle headlights and tele-
visions, is banished, and strings of traditional paper lanterns that embody
a reinvigoration of craft traditions light public spaces. Crucially, the festival
is promoted “as an ideal location for dates, where couples can share in an
emotional and educational romanticization of their heritage” (di Giovine
2009, 221). Di Giovine also emphasizes that the event provides a sense of
the past by conjuring up a time before modern technology, a practice that
generates a “collective spirit of effervescence . . . an experience of communi-
tas that transcends generations as well as social status” (225).
A very different lantern parade is organized during the biannual Moon-
raking Festival in the town of Slaithwaite, Yorkshire, held on a February
evening. The festival celebrates an early nineteenth-century incident that
occurred during a time when a group of local men profited from smuggling
illicit alcohol via the Huddersfield Narrow Canal that passes through the
town. One night, as they loaded barrels of illegal liquor from a barge, an
exciseman appeared, causing the men to dump the barrels into the water.
When they later returned to fish out the barrels, two more excisemen
caught them in the act. Pretending to be inebriated, one of the men replied
that the moon had fallen out of the sky and they were raking it out, trick-
ing the officials into thinking that they were merely drunken fools. In cele
brating this example of local cunning, the festival commences with a large
paper lantern designed in the shape of the moon being hoisted out of the
canal by crane. Subsequently, the moon lantern is carried at the head of a
procession that includes several bands garbed in colorful illuminated deco-
rations, and makes its way around the village for an hour or so.
In 2015 the theme of the festival was “landmarks.” Hundreds of assem-
bled schoolchildren and others of all ages, many wearing fancy dress,
had designed lanterns out of paper and willow branches. The parade pro-
duced the surreal sight of a bobbing sea of famous destinations, includ-
ing the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal, the Angel of the North, and Syd-
ney Opera House, above a sea of people. The success of the festival relies
on locals being prepared to design and carry lanterns through the town’s
dark streets. Both spatial defamiliarization and a sense of place are pro-
duced during the reenactment of the historical myth that ostensibly sets
Slaithwaite apart by virtue of its antiauthoritarian, independent spirit.
The procession inscribes a collective identity in space, binding participants
together in a carnivalesque, loosely scripted performance. The bands add
to the playful occupation of usually quiet streets, normally used for shop-
ping, going to school, or walking dogs. The lanterns catalyze the energies
of the streets traversed, especially when passing through and illuminat-
ing key sites in the local landscape—the canal, bridges, church, and town
hall. A dark passage underneath a railway bridge is particularly charged
by this illumination, encouraging an increase in the volume of the bands’
music and shouts and singing from marchers. Bystanders line the road or
lean out from the windows of adjacent houses, noisily cheering and wav-
ing to marchers, which in addition to the drinking and dancing that fol-
lows the end of the procession, supplement the production of an enhanced
topophilia, consolidating collective belonging (Tuan 1974). The Moon-
raking Festival encourages a conviviality manufactured by local people
themselves, as under the glow of lanterns they interactively shape space
affectively, creatively, and expressively, forging a temporary communitas
(Nowicka and Vertovec 2014). Such events are far from neoliberal expres-
sions of governance and commodification; they are produced by and rely
on generosity, local pride, and the hospitable dispositions of participants
(Hollows et al. 2014).
The fostering of interactivity through illumination can create atmo-
spheres of shared conviviality, silliness, and playfulness in less local, intimate
Figure 23. Moonraking Festival, Slaithwaite, UK, 2015. Lanterns in the form of landmarks are
carried through the town to celebrate a unique local historical event, underlining a sense of
place and generating a strange and convivial atmosphere. Photograph by the author.
contexts, as exemplified by three attractions installed at Sydney’s 2014 VIVID

Festival. The festival’s defining characteristic is the multitude of inventive
ways that installations invite people to interact with light, a quality avowedly
championed by the event’s organizers. This is epitomized by three adjacent
harbor-side attractions that encourage visitors to discard self-consciousness
and publicly perform in ways they usually would not, adding to the giddy
atmosphere. Visitors can move between these attractions, engaging with
them through different physical actions that loosen inhibitions.
First, The Pool formed an area fitted with over a hundred concentric cir-
cular pads. Visitors leaped from pad to pad, producing a burst of color, the
intensity of which varied according to the impact and weight of their land-
ing. The pads also responded to the numbers of participants in brightness
and the speed of the color change. On busy nights, the scene was of a mul-
tigenerational throng of people, jumping between pads, collectively gener-
ating dynamic patterns of color, and enjoying a tactile engagement with
the soft plastic material and the swirling movement of bodies and light.
Family members and friends crowded around the outside, urging each
other to leap inside; teenagers tried to land on each pad with great force,
laughter followed attempts by two people to vault onto the same pad, and
myriad other playful interactions, improvisational maneuvers, and expres-
sive movements took place. Second, Ray, a tall structure akin to a maypole,
was activated by visitors when they pulled on one of three ropes to activate
the illuminated colors that rapidly pulsed toward the top of the sculpture
and then surged down its base in ever-changing patterns. The quantity and
flow of light depended on the energy with which the ropes were tugged.
Figure 24. The Pool, VIVID, Sydney, 2014. This interactive light attraction solicits a physical,
expressive, and playful engagement. Devised by and courtesy of Jen Lewin. Photograph by
Aaron Rogosin.
People waited in line for a chance to pull on the ropes, subsequently trying
out different rhythms and degrees of force. The third installation was Mir-
ror Heart Ball, which took the form of a pulsing ballroom floor of chang-
ing colors bordered at one end by neon strips that formed a vertical heart
shape. The floor was populated with large numbers of adults and children
enthusiastically dancing to the song “Love Is in the Air,” and an equally
large number of spectators. The display was inspired by the stage version of
the popular Australian film Strictly Ballroom and served as the centerpiece
for the Destination NSW float in Sydney’s 2014 Mardi Gras parade. The
playful design celebrated both the expressive quality of Baz Luhrmann’s
movie and the cultural significance of Mardi Gras, chiming with the camp,
spectacular, expressive qualities of ballroom culture and Mardi Gras, as
well as Sydney’s much-vaunted liberal mores. The interactivity encouraged
in these adjacent attractions drew in willing participants who were ready
to move, shout, and perform in ways that contravene the usual norms of
conduct in public space, inviting others to join in or soliciting the enjoy-
ment of onlookers. A usually desolate area of the city in May and June was
catalyzed into a ferment of fun and silliness.
Another key interactive aspect of Sydney’s VIVID festival is the possibil-
ity for visitors to witness representations of their own bodies and faces in
unfamiliar settings, at various scales, and in peculiar forms. For instance,
a three-dimensional installation Emergence, a large crystal shape embed-
ded in the ground, in Martin Place, a busy city center thoroughfare, was
transformed by the real-time projection of visitors’ heads onto its form,
augmented with patterns of illuminated color. It was a somewhat uncanny
experience for visitors to see their own likeness staring back at them, like
some mythical beast rising up out of the Earth to move among mortals.
Emergence suggests the possibilities that may arise for designing the built
environment through techniques of digital fabrication, three-dimensional
scanning, and generative design. The virtual presence of residents and visi-
tors in public space perhaps heralds future democratic possibilities where
citizens may contribute to the production of images across space, updating
the graffiti tagger’s desire to mark his or her existence on the urban fabric.
A more overt form of codesign was explored in Colour the Bridge, designed
by 32 Hundred Lighting, which focused on the in situ illumination of Syd-
ney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and was facilitated by a touch screen in a kiosk
on the harbor’s north side. Visitors could choose colors from a broad spec-
trum to transform the appearance of the structure’s curved, horizontal,
and vertical lines, enabled by the installation of two thousand LEDs. These
Figure 25. Author’s head, Emergence, VIVID, Martin Place, Sydney, 2014. A three-dimensional
representation of the self in a large crystal embedded into the street, the attraction offers a
peculiar experience of seeing a representation of the self in an unusual form but also suggests
future technological possibilities for the codesign of the city by citizens. Photograph by
the author.
elements could simply be painted with color or made to pulse with differ-
ent mixes, enabling each user to create unique patterns. The display was
also a profoundly playful installation that allowed expressive creativities
to be enacted at the touch of a button. Such attractions signify the pos-
sibilities of smart, interactive technologies: of interacting with responsive
technologies daily, receiving various information across space, and demo
cratically participating in the design of the city by scanning images of our-
selves, ideas, representations, and objects that can be projected onto the
city’s material form. Such techniques have the potential to expand the
mutability and flexibility of the city, allowing the marking of identities onto
its surfaces, spreading meanings across space, and opening up possibilities
for creative engagement and design.
These particular installations also reveal how another form of inter
activity emerges at light festivals: that constituted by the coming together
of professionals to share ideas, techniques, and know-how. As David Picard
and Mike Robinson (2006, 14) emphasize, “Festivals form privileged are-
nas of cultural creativity” in which the novel, the prototypical, and the
experimental enter the field. Groups of designers, artists, light technicians,
computer technicians, and engineers may try things out in situ. These
improvisational experiments can produce novel technical solutions and
artistic effects, and success depends on how installations solicit or fail to
induce forms of visitor engagement, an unpredictable matter. Such pro-
cesses require that the festive environment be inclusive and open-minded.
Under such conditions, networks of association emerge in which ideas and
expertise are shared and, according to Nona Schulte-Römer (2013, 152),
“offer different social groups open access and a variety of opportunities to
share experiences and encounter the new.” For instance, Matthias Haeusler
(2015, 144) discusses how Sydney’s VIVID festival has been a “crucible for
lighting forms that facilitate the assessment of new lighting technologies”
and serves as a testing ground in which experimental concepts and new
smart lighting techniques can be tried out.
These creative engagements among professionals supplement the mood
of conviviality and a disposition toward playfulness solicited by interactive
installations, suggesting that such festivals act as temporary “third places,”
socially inclusive, relaxed, and unprescriptive public spaces beyond work-
place and home (Hawkins and Ryan 2014). Space that usually serves as a
location for everyday work, commerce, travel, and mundane tasks is trans-
formed into a convivial playground, and the usual business-like, unreflex-
ive, and customary dispositions of habitués are suspended in favor of expres-
sive behavior and carefree interactions with others, with self-consciousness
temporarily suppressed. This transformation of meaning, feeling, and
function suggests that such spaces may be apprehended, practiced, and
interpreted differently. As Quentin Stevens (2007) points out, festivals are
ludic events, not necessarily experienced passively but frequently occasions
for pleasure and fun. This seduction of people into a convivial attitude
toward others and a more expressive engagement with space signals how
play can circumvent instrumental practice and heighten affective belong-
ing. Such practices are not synonymous with a romantic opposition to the
established order, for as Tanya Woodyer (2012, 318) claims, “the politics
of playing are primarily bound up in experiencing vitality rather than stra-
tegic oppositional endeavour.” Instead, they belong to those dimensions of
the city that foreground the improvisational, the sensuous, and the pecu-
liar. I suggest that light festivals are sites at which such qualities are espe-
cially encouraged through diverse developing practices.
Conclusion
Tripping, Defamiliarization, and Attunement
In this chapter, I have acknowledged the salience of critical accounts
which contend that contemporary festivals are manifestations of neolib-
eral attempts to commodify place, producing empty spectacles that coerce
creative agents into producing compromised work and lull spectators into
passivity. However, in foregrounding defamiliarization, place making, and
interactivity as key features, I contend that light festivals can stimulate criti-
cal awareness about the specificity of perception, promote interrogation of
the normative uses and meanings of place, bring to mind forgotten histories
and neglected spaces, and generate conviviality and playfulness in otherwise
lackluster places. Light festivals also serve as sites for creative and techni-
cal experimentation. In contrast to earlier carnivals, with their license for
hierarchical inversion and excessive expression, contemporary festivals are
characterized by regulated, conditional forms of transgression and hardly
threaten to revolutionize space and society. However, there are many possi-
bilities for the everyday world to be reenchanted, made strange, and encoded
with alternative meanings and values, and many opportunities to stimulate
imaginative approaches to the future. Indeed, new techniques being devel-
oped by light designers and artists are heralding novel ways in which the
“technological uncanny” (Collins and Jervis 2008) of the early modern city
might be regenerated, as perception is destabilized and scenes become replete
with distortion, surprise, involuntary memory, and the unfathomable.
The opening up of such experiences seems akin to Maria Cichosz’s
(2014, 15) notion of “tripping” as “an affectively amplified part of a con-
tinuum of consciousness” through which we can become attuned to “the
affective texture of the everyday.” The affective and sensory qualities engen-
dered by festive illumination reconfigure space as abounding with openness
and conviviality, providing conditions in which participants might take this
further, into the everyday, in “breaking the complacency of habit” (58) and
fostering an attentiveness to seeing and being otherwise. Can festivals con-
tinue to innovate and enchant with novelty, creating surprising ways to
configure the world differently? Is there going to be a consistent stream of
design, artistry, and technical advancements that will continue to delight,
or will such efforts strain to appeal to an increasingly jaded public? In the
next chapter, I discuss how light festivals, among other uses of illumina-
tion, are occasions at which powerful, shifting atmospheres can be created,
generating a temporary, but perhaps more lingering sense of belonging.
Chapter 6 Staging Atmosphere:
Public Extravaganzas and
Domestic Designs
Making Sense of Atmosphere

Recently, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to atmosphere, an
aspect of life that is certainly familiar but difficult to pin down. In this chap-
ter, I tease out some of the multiple ways in which illumination is a key
constituent of the atmospheres of places and times, extending some of the
discussions of the previous three chapters as well as introducing new con-
cepts and examples. First, I outline how atmospheres can be distinguished
before discussing how light is a vital element in their ongoing composition.
I then discuss the skillful ways in which lighting professionals, the choreog
raphers of large ceremonies, artists, and concert lighting engineers use
illumination to stage different kinds of atmospheres. Subsequently, and
returning to the light festivals discussed previously, I exemplify how atmo-
spheres are not merely produced by event organizers and designers but are
crucially coproduced by those in their midst. Drawing on festive and artis-
tic installations, I argue that the energetic responses of participants belie
notions of their mute attunement to preexisting atmospheres. Finally, I
explore how specific cultural practices of illumination produce particular
homespun atmospheres, vernacular creative endeavors that draw on an
increasing range of technologies, designs, colors, and forms of radiance
provided by the market.
In attempting to capture something of their pervasive quality, Gernot
Böhme (2013, 2) considers how atmospheres “imbue everything, they . . .
bathe everything in a certain light, unify a diversity of impressions.” In
combining multiple, changing elements, atmospheres condition our affec-
tive, emotional, and sensuous experience of the environments within
which we are immersed. Though we may be familiar or unfamiliar with
the atmospheric qualities of particular places, and refer generally to “the
139
140 Staging Atmosphere
atmosphere,” we are rarely able to articulate their characteristics. Accord-

ingly, Böhme also alludes to how powerful atmospheres may constitute
“something which can come over us, into which we are drawn, which takes
possession of us like an alien power” (3). However, he insists that they are
intermediate phenomena, belonging in neither the world out there nor the
individual person but invariably circulating between them. While the affec-
tive, emotional, or sensual charge of an atmosphere may permeate a set-
ting, attuning our moods, it is also “the extendedness of my mood itself ”
(Böhme 2002, 5). Atmospheres thus circulate between the objective and
subjective.
Diffuse, spreading atmospheric qualities suffuse all spaces and are
enjoined by the moods and embodied responses of those present, but in some
spaces, they more persuasively enroll the subject than in others. Cameron
Duff (2010) contends that certain places are saturated with a sense of sen-
sual, emotional, and affective belonging, while others are characterized by
a thinner atmospheric charge. Thus the capacity of atmospheres to affect
bodies and emotions varies in intensity. Indeed, we can readily distinguish
between the atmospheres generated at particular settings. For instance,
the surging moods and infectious atmospheres at large sporting occasions
or rock music festivals contrast with the subdued, reverential intensity
of a quiet spiritual realm such as a church. The atmospheric tones of the
busy, impersonal excitement generated by hurrying pedestrians during the
rush hour of a large metropolis differ enormously from the anticipatory
impulses encouraged by the emerging sunlight and vibrant birdsong of an
early spring morning in the English countryside.
I shortly discuss the key role of illumination in contributing to atmo-
spheres, but it is essential to grasp that though light may be a potent ele-
ment, it is accompanied by myriad other elements. Atmospheres are char-
acterized by their multiplicity, by dynamic energies and forces that combine
to foster their continuous emergence, conditioning their power. Atmo-
spheres are relational phenomena that enroll different configurations of
objects, technologies, humans, and nonhuman creatures in an ongoing
emergence typified by changing “qualities, rhythms, forces, relations, and
movements” (Stewart 2011, 445). As well as light, the quality of air, tem-
perature, sound, smell, and textures adds to the tone of a place and event.
The general mood might be tuned by absorption in everyday habit or by
festivity or sober commemoration. Moreover, atmospheres are likely to be
tuned according to recent personal experience, shared knowledge of local,
national, or global happenings, or by previous associations connected to
Staging Atmosphere 141
place and event, not to mention sudden occurrences. For instance, I have
discussed how the atmosphere at well-attended football matches continu
ously changes in reaction to the unfolding events on the pitch and the
conduct and mood of the crowd, as well as numerous other contingencies
(Edensor 2015a). These coalescing elements underline how atmospheres
entangle the material and immaterial in a fluid, ever-shifting fashion, as the
aggregation of elements with which they are composed change, some dissi-
pating and others surging, adding to an ongoing mix of varying intensities.
The ways in which we become entangled within atmospheric settings is
discussed by Jean Paul Thibaud (2011, 209), who refers to how the “per-
vasive quality” of a “situation as a whole” “gets inside us,” orienting us
toward particular actions and expressions. Thus rather than elicit any pas-
sivity, atmosphere “gives rhythm to our movements and modulates the
manner in which we move,” providing the conditions within which we act.
Familiar atmospheres, as much as the practical tacit knowledge associated
with a deep familiarity with place, sustain the domestic settings in which
we carry out repetitive habits, providing a context “that lays down root tex-
tures and motivations for movement and feelings” (Adey 2007, 439). On
the other hand, exciting and festive atmospheres solicit the suspension of
such habitual dispositions, encouraging immersion in special events.
This integration of the social and the environmental underlines how it
is essential to take account of the historical, cultural, and political contexts
in which atmospheres emerge and dissipate, and grasp the attunement of
some people to become absorbed within them. As Böhme (2013) contends,
“the quasi-objectivity of atmospheres is demonstrated by the fact that we
can communicate about them in language,” yet he further asserts that the
production of this intersubjectivity depends on a shared perception that
“must have been instilled . . . through cultural socialisation.” This attune
ment foregrounds the key roles of subjects in coproducing atmospheres
in various ways. Indeed, designers depend on an acceptance of the atmo-
spheres they produce, though they can never be sure whether a crowd will
respond to the atmosphere unexpectedly, and they are unable to anticipate
whether a blackout, sudden rainstorm, or newsflash will utterly transform
the mood. Furthermore, while those comfortably familiar with particular
atmospheres may well become happily immersed within them and contrib-
ute to their ongoing emergence, others may not be so similarly attuned to
the setting or feel discomfort. For instance, at the fairground, the heady mix
of loud music, shouts, and mechanical noises, the sensory disorientation
instigated by waltzers and roller coasters, and the suspension of ordinary
conduct among the crowd are irresistible for many attendees; others find
the intense fairground atmosphere threatening and overpowering.
Before considering the contribution of light to atmosphere, I address
the theoretically convoluted relationship between affect and atmosphere in
recent academic literature. Affect has been defined as “a sense of push in
the world . . . a notion of broad tendencies and lines of force” that circu-
late through bodies, space, and things (Thrift 2004, 60). Like atmosphere,
notions of affect usefully claim that affect is distributed across space,
expanding understandings about the constitution of the social beyond
the purely human. In decentering the individual human subject, concep-
tions of affect foreground how different configurations of objects, technolo-
gies, and (human and nonhuman) bodies come together to form different
capacities and effects. This insistence on the relationality of the affective
offers opportunities to explore how such actors and energies relate and are
spatially distributed. However, certain accounts have also contended that
such affective configurations are constitutive of “affective” atmospheres
(Conradson and Latham 2007; Anderson 2009). Yet while the affectual is
certainly a key element in atmospheres, atmospheres are not reducible to
their affectual qualities. Rather, in their continuously shifting formation,
they combine the affectual, the emotional, and the sensory. Atmospheres
are multiply composed out of sensual elements as well as the social and
cultural contexts in which they are emotionally and affectively consumed,
interpreted, and engaged. To emphasize, affects, sensations, materialities,
emotions, and meanings are all enrolled within atmospheres (Bille, Bjerre
gaard, and Sørensen 2015; Edensor 2012).
This focus on their affective qualities has led to further assertions that
diminish a grasp of the rich dynamism of atmospheres. First, certain
accounts infer that affect is composed of “transpersonal or prepersonal
intensities” (Massumi 2002), in contradistinction to emotion as precisely
the intersubjective expression of the feeling of these intensities “in a socio-
culturally recognizable form” (McCormack 2008, 426), that is, translated
into particular, communicable states of emotion such as anger, joy, and
anxiety. This has produced an unfortunate binary understanding of affect
and emotion in which each is conceived as a discrete condition (Pile 2010).
While it is useful to conceptually distinguish affect and emotion from each
other, these states are almost always thoroughly entangled, each possessing
boundaries that are “amorphous and elusive” (Bondi and Davidson 2011,
595). Both thus belong to but do not determine the totality of atmospheres.
Second, an exclusive focus on the affective qualities of atmosphere sug-
gests that people are thrust into an atmospheric situation to which they
have to attune, rather than usually being guided by norms of practice
and response. This disregard for the anticipation and prior experience of
those entering particular atmospheric fields suggests somewhat of a “mute
attunement” to place or event, entirely devoid of political, social, and cul-
tural orientations (Barnett 2008). Gillian Rose, Monica Degen, and Begum
Basdas (2010, 338–39) point to the inadequacy of considering space a
realm that “precedes any individual body or subjectivity, and in which cog-
nition, interpretation and motivation are rather minor processes.” Such
conceptions wholly neglect to acknowledge how peoples’ prior sensory
experience, cultural habits, or expectations might influence their responses
to atmospheres. Besides ignoring any participation in the coproduction of
atmosphere, such understandings fail to grasp the social, cultural, and his-
torical contextualization that surround their experience and production.
I insist that atmospheric attunement is frequently anticipated attunement,
for emotions and affects “have a culture, history, seasonality, psychology,
biology, economy and so on” that produce familiar experiential consisten-
cies and recurrences (Smith, Davidson, and Bondi 2009, 1).
In thinking about how light contributes to atmospheres, we might con-
sider both the effects of glittering, glowing, or shimmering illuminations
from afar as well as the light that encloses us. The light in any setting
refracts, reflects, and is absorbed by the materialities that it shines on and
media such as cloud, mist, and water that foreground the meteorological
dimensions of atmosphere. The levels of daylight that shape the percep-
tual field to which we continuously attune are also manifest in the shifting
variations and intensities of artificial illumination. The production of areas
of glare, color, reflection, and shadow interacts with material and immate-
rial elements that constitute a scene. In chapter 1, I also discussed how col-
ored objects “go forth” from themselves to tincture surrounding elements.
Mikkel Bille, Peter Bjerregaard, and Tim Flohr Sørensen (2015, 32) fur-
ther consider how what Böhme terms these “ecstasies” of a thing condi-
tion atmospheres, transmitting affects, emotions, and sensations across a
setting, effects to which we respond and become attuned. It is thus evident
that light has a powerful propensity to tincture surroundings and thereby
provokes affective and emotional resonances in the sensing body, activat-
ing passions, instigating sensual pleasures and discomforts, and adding to
the tone of place. Illuminations “radiate presence, projecting their quali-
ties outwards and colouring the environs,” and as a key element in shifting
atmospheres, illumination cannot be delimited, for it fades into darkness
or blends with other lighting (Thibaud 2011, 211). Thus artificial lighting
supplies various tones of feeling that influence notions about how to oper-
ate in particular spatial and social settings, and thereby provokes emotive,
practical, and communicative responses that further contribute to atmo-
sphere. The atmospheric effects solicited by illumination, as Allan Cochrane
(2004, 12–13) intimates, are manifold, revealing “texture, accent, spatial
transition, visual cues, security and perception of security, moods, cerebral
temperature and drama,” radiating diverse qualities of sparkle, glow, glare,
highlighting, and diffusion. In what follows, I discuss how the multiple
capacities of illumination are harnessed by professional designers to stage
atmospheres, inspire those subsumed within the glow of light to coproduce
atmospheres, and are deployed by householders to shape the everyday, ver-
nacular production of domestic atmospheres.
Staging Atmospheres with Light

Böhme (2008, 4) contends that stage production techniques set “the con-
ditions in which the atmosphere appears,” creating “tuned” spaces with
tones, hues, and shapes that possess divergent affective registers and emo-
tional intensities in performative, commercial, and festive realms. The
notion that atmospheres might be staged emerges from theatrical con-
texts in which stage sets provide atmospheric backdrops to the dramatic
action, attuning the audience to the unfolding performance of the actors
(Böhme 2013). Beyond the theater, the production of atmosphere is a long-
standing concern of the design professions: interior designers, stage man-
agers, artists, light designers, and architects are explicit about the impor-
tance of atmosphere to their work (Borch 2014; Griffero 2014; Pallasmaa
2014). Interior designers assemble potential material elements on “mood
boards” to experiment with how to tune places (Sloan 2014). And as Peter
Zumthor (2006) contends, in paying attention to atmospheric qualities,
architects must reach beyond qualities of form and construction.
Thibaud suggests that increasingly “explicit strategies to sensibilize
inhabited space” seek to transform the media through which we experi-
ence the world, the sounds, odors, lights, colors, temperature, and air qual-
ity that shape the conditions under which we apprehend place, to pro-
duce a tuned realm rather than a concentrated spectacle. As he asserts,
“Urban design no longer just focuses on objects but also what is between
the objects” (Thibaud 2015, 40–42). Thus designers attempt to produce
affective tonalities through such qualities as soothing sounds, lively tactili-
ties, or aromatic ambiences.
Thibaud further contends that the atmospheric management of most

commercial spaces is not concerned with producing excitable or enervat-
ing effects. Instead, gentler sensory and affective tones are designed to pro-
duce a quiescent, carefully cultivated atmosphere that does not overstimu-
late those passing through. Here, the shopping mall is exemplary, with its
background music, surveillance techniques that regulate customer behav-
ior, and optimal lighting to showcase products, as Stephen Healy (2014)
discusses. He argues that the production of a monotonous temperature
chimes with a wider biopolitical control that induces a disorientated, some-
what languid corporeal sensibility. Supplemented by visual design, light-
ing, and modes of moving people, he asserts that an “involuntary vulner-
ability” is produced wherein shoppers, lulled into a state of distraction,
are cajoled into spending by a plethora of visual blandishments, while
carefully designed pathways guide them to designated sites and restrict
somatic improvisation. Such pacifying urban atmospheres resonate with
Trevor Boddy’s depiction of what he terms a “new urban prosthetics” that
incorporates “incessant whirring,” “mechanical breezes,” “vaguely reas-
suring icons,” “trickling fountains,” and “low murmurings” that filter
out “troubling smells and winds.” Such stagings, Boddy (1992: 123–24)
suggests, inculcate in inhabitants a toned-down bodily expression so that
there is “never a clenched fist, a passionate kiss, a giddy wink, a fixed-
shoulder stride”; accordingly, those moving through such spaces copro-
duce the muted atmosphere. Yet the ways in which designed atmospheres
close down or open up meanings and practices to improvisation, contes-
tation, interactivity, and experimentation vary widely. A sole focus on the
staging of powerful atmospheres by commercial interests and assumptions
that their overwhelming effects hold those within their midst spellbound
veers once more toward the suggestions of passive enthrallment critiqued
in chapter 4.
As Vincent Laganier and Jasmine van der Pol (2011) testify, light
designers are well aware of the imperative to create atmospheres for the
users of illuminated spaces, and awareness of these atmospheric poten-
tialities is expanding as public spaces become increasingly aestheticized.
This atmospheric staging with lighting is, however, far from new. In chap-
ter 2, I discussed how daylight was skillfully deployed in the great Gothic
cathedrals of medieval Europe to combine the metaphorical, social, and
phenomenological, thus captivating worshippers. The staging of artificial
light and its imbrication with the various materialities through which it
shone augmented the use of sunlight, demonstrating “the effect (of light)
of the reflections and lustre of the objects on sight and the materiality of
the objects” (Bille and Sørensen 2007, 269). The sparkling, glistening,
and translucent materials that adorned shrines and altars reflected and
absorbed candlelight, providing a numinous sacred magic. According to
Nicholas Saunders (2002, 215), these mooted spiritual qualities embody
“notions of the supernatural qualities of light and colour as embodiment
of cosmological energy [that] were materialized in objects and validated in
their myriad forms by artistic and ritual display.” The inflections of flicker-
ing light on the hollows, niches, and darker chambers of sacred space nur-
tured a blending of aesthetic, sensory, emotional, and affective apprehen-
sion that intensified spiritual experience. In Byzantine churches, as Sharon
Gerstel (2006, 2) describes, candlelight was deployed to create “atmo-
spheric enclosure . . . palpable boundaries within sacred settings.” These
discreet realms, as Claire Nesbitt (2012, 159) explains, produced a “sta-
tional way of moving around the building, the light provided an ethereal
guide, inviting the viewer to the significant areas.” Illumination also suc-
cessively picked out iconography, the colors of frescoes and the gold tesserae
in mosaics, and shone over significant tombs in serving as “a currency of
devotion placed as an offering to the icons,” with reverence “measured by
the quantity of candles placed before the image.” The atmospheric experi-
ence of the cathedral thus flowed through the different interior spaces and
was further charged by the passage of believers. The staging of candlelight
at Durham Cathedral in the event “Free to Be,” as discussed in chapter 3,
produces an impression of these medieval atmospheres of reverence.
In chapter 4 I referred to Shanti Sumartojo’s (2015) discussion of the
Australian Anzac Day commemoration and the potent deployment of both
illumination and darkness to stoke a sense of shared national remem-
brance. The huge crowds that gather before dawn collect in the dark as an
unseen mass that becomes apparent only once the sun casts its light, and
this gloom is penetrated by dramatic lighting effects to further intensify the
atmosphere. Moreover, the hour at which the ceremony is staged alludes
to the predawn horror experienced by Australian soldiers in the Gallipoli
campaign, soliciting empathy in the imaginations of attendees. Sumartojo
also discusses the wild rejoicing of postwar celebrations on VE Day in 1945
at London’s Trafalgar Square, enhanced by a vivid illumination that had
been made unfamiliar by the light deprivation enforced by the widespread
wartime blackout: “Its affective impact relied on the contrast between the
illuminated streets and the gloom they [Londoners] had become accus-
tomed to.” The event enhanced the transformation of the city and sym-
bolized national endurance and release after six years of devastation and
deprivation. The illumination of the iconic square heightened the momen-
tousness of the occasion and provoked sentiments of “national unity, time-
lessness and stability,” in combination with a more unrestrained, carni-
valesque jubilation that contributed to an especially fervent atmosphere
(Sumartojo 2014, 65–68).
The contemporary spectacular staging of atmosphere via illumination
ranges from opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games to national ritu-
als. London’s opening Olympic ceremony marked the forthcoming sporting
extravaganza with a spectacle of music, drama, and vast swathes of illu-
mination. Angharad Closs Stephens (2015, 4) demonstrates how at such
events, “feelings of togetherness” emerge through singing and coordinated
mass choreography, as affective and emotional currents pass between spec-
tating bodies and “sound, music, colours, patterns, postures and gestures
combine to generate national affective experiences.” The already attuned
audience was enmeshed in a spectacle intensified by the outpouring of illu-
mination that cascaded down and across the stadium.
More ubiquitous are the light displays that accompany performances of
popular music acts, focusing intensely on the stage and radiating across
the audience, with special effects, projections, and animations of varying
complexity. Such illumination is deployed in increasingly sophisticated
ways to synchronize with the rhythms of the music, accentuate particu-
lar beats and melodic tones, and generally enhance the affective and emo-
tional depth of the experience. The spreading glow of dry ice, the blast of
white light that heralds a climactic moment, the pulse of strobe lighting
that defamiliarizes the setting and disorientates perception supplement the
atmospheric effects of the music. These dramatic effects are augmented
with the spotlighting of performers at key musical moments and lasers that
strafe the audience and pick out individuals and groups.
Strikingly, Monica Degen, Claire Melhuish, and Gillian Rose (forthcom-
ing) explore how representations of atmosphere have become a main-
stream commercial practice of architectural and urban branding through
the use of computer-generated images that visualize future urban rede-
velopments in Qatar. These virtual atmospheres conjure up a soon-to-be
regenerated swathe of Doha’s historic center, featuring intense luminosity
and color, fireworks, suggestions of movement via blurred figures, varied
and playful activities, and convivial social interaction.
Though the staging of atmospheres of light discussed so far largely focus
on instrumental design, whether for religious, nationalistic, or commercial
aims, atmospheric illumination is also mobilized in the production of more

imaginative events. To exemplify this, I return to Durham’s 2013 Lumiere
light festival to look at an evocative installation created by the artist Ron
Haselden (Edensor 2015b). Festive events produce diverse affective, emo-
tional, and sensual forces, and as visitors move between differently tuned
settings, they experience ever-shifting atmospheric intensities that in turn
solicit different kinds of movement, noise, and somatic communication.
Haselden’s Fête offered a somewhat more subtle experience than most of
the other illuminated attractions on offer at Lumiere. The work was inspired
by a visit to the Fête de Blé in Pleudehen in rural Brittany, France, an event
that included, according to the artist, “Bretonne dancing, parades of past
farming costumes, tools, teams of horses slowly turning a vast capstan to
grind the wheat . . . all enhanced by drinking Bretonne cider” (pers. comm.,
September 2, 2014). The installation was located on a rather lonely stretch
of parkland adjacent to the River Wear, which runs through the city. Some-
what detached from the flows of people that surged between illuminated
attractions in the crowded town center, the location contrastingly provided
unpeopled space and quiet.
Pedestrians were lured into the park by dozens of strings hung from
poles and adorned with carnival lightbulbs arranged as a canopy, enclos-
ing the bodies that walked beneath. The lights switched on and off in regu-
lar sequence, accompanied by alternating sequences of fairground music
synchronized to match the rhythm of the animated light. Haselden explic-
itly acknowledges that Fête “is a mood work . . . The canopies of chase
sequencing lights create the mood/arena for waltzing dancing or wan-
dering around, on your own, under the night sky” (pers. comm., Septem-
ber 2, 2014). At Durham the installation conjured up the atmosphere of
an abandoned or recently finished fete or fair, a sense that what had been a
vigorous and joyous communal event had now finished, and the party was
over. Here, the location of the site compounded a sense of movement into a
sphere of quiet stillness, inducing silent reflection and a meditative, rather
melancholy atmosphere. This melancholy was inflected with a sense of the
sudden absence of a carnival that had temporarily catalyzed nocturnal
space. The restrained sound and lightscape provoked a contrasting sense
of what was there before, the swirl of bright, flashing lights, gaudy images
of glamour, clanking and whirring rides, shouts of stallholders, hysterical
laughter, squeals of fright, and animated conversations. The particularly
thick, giddy atmosphere of the fair or carnival is brought to mind by its
sheer contrast with the quiescence of Fête.
Figure 26. Ron Haselden, Fête, Durham Lumiere, 2013. This evocative mood work generates a
powerful atmosphere, melancholy, and nostalgia. Devised by, photographed by, and courtesy of
Ron Haselden.
The installation also solicits a sense of nostalgia generated by shared

remembrance of the fairs and fetes we have attended and the brief sense of
communitas they may have fostered. This is especially pertinent at the Dur-
ham site, for it is a venue that continues to host traveling fairs and is thereby
subject to the atmospheric transformations wrought by such temporary
events, perhaps invoking an enhanced topophilia toward this location for
local residents (Tuan 1974). Yet Fête has been staged in many other venues.
As Haselden remarks, the work “changes with each location,” its interpre-
tation and impact varying according to the cultural and historical contexts
in which it is set, contexts that influence the formation of atmosphere. For
instance, a completely different atmosphere was produced when the instal-
lation was situated in a French roadside parking area. Here, according to
Haselden, “people would pull up in their cars and waltz in it,” transforming
the site into a performative and convivial setting. Yet wherever it is located,
Fête has a propensity to induce an atmosphere that resonates with other
times and places. Accordingly, Fête underlines how powerful atmospheres
staged with light are not necessarily those in which vibrant colors, vigor-
ous animation, and other spectacular effects produce a great hubbub or
demand rapt attentiveness.
Coproducing Illuminated Atmospheres

I have emphasized that atmospheres should not be conceived as pervasive
environmental conditions within which people are suddenly immersed.
While it may be the case that deeply unfamiliar settings can occasion-
ally induce feelings of becoming captured by overwhelming atmospheres
in which we are involuntarily swept up, most of the time we enter atmo-
spheric fields with which we are broadly familiar, which we may well have
anticipated because of prior experience, and which we transform by our
presence. Recent theories of affect have tended to discount social and cul-
tural contexts (Tolia-Kelly 2006; Rose, Degen, and Begum 2010), assum-
ing a mute attunement to the circulating intensities that contribute to
atmospheres, thereby neglecting how affective experience is “a cumulative,
and therefore historical, process of interaction between human beings and
place” (Kobayashi, Preston, and Murnaghan 2011, 873). Affective experi-
ence is partly conditioned by the social connections and understandings
that preclude their formation, and as I have insisted, affect is supplemented
in the ongoing generation of atmospheres by emotional and sensory cir-
culations. For instance, as Cameron Duff and David Moore (2015, 311)
contend, though the atmospheres of Melbourne’s drinking spaces “prime”
drinkers toward antisocial behavior or sociability and fun, they can be
“modulated, compounded or resisted.” Moreover, engagements with atmo-
spheres can articulate contemporary cultural practices and foreground
particular identities, but it is also essential to recognize the historical con-
texts of atmospheres. As Friedlind Reidel (2015, 98–105) contends, “Indi-
viduals, sentiments and emotional currents shift alongside and in rela-
tion to larger-scale atmospheric movements” and are therefore “embedded
in the currents of history and . . . productive in forming pasts and futures.”
Festivals are useful occasions that reveal how illumination can trans-
form the experience of space and time, defamiliarizing and augmenting a
sense of place, and consequently charging atmospheres with occasionally
overwhelming effects. Yet crucially, festivals also enroll bodies into copro-
ducing the experience by encouraging forms of interactivity. The partici
pating lantern makers who carry their creations through the streets of
Slaithwaite produce a thick atmosphere that fluxes, intensifying at par-
ticular junctions where the procession passes underneath railway tunnels
or reaches the end of the march, and becomes more subdued on quieter,
darker stretches of the walk. The crucial issue here is that the pedestri-
ans carrying their lanterns are integral to producing this particular fluid
atmosphere. This is also the case at the interactive installations of Sydney’s

VIVID festival, where the engaged participation of festivalgoers generates a
carnivalesque atmosphere in concert with the sensory and affective quali-
ties of the illuminations themselves. Laughter, shouting, the communica-
tion between participants, their expressive physical gestures and ludic dis-
position are key elements in producing the festive ambience that circulates
across the event, escalating around particular illuminated installations.
Such festive activities seem to promote what Amanda Wise and Selvaraj
Velayutham (2014) call “convivial multiculture,” generating a transfor-
mative atmosphere that fosters an inclusivity in which social and cultural
distinctions dissolve.
The participation of visitors is thus essential to the coproduction of
these atmospheres, their expressive engagement and active communi-
cation responding to illuminated space, creating tones of conviviality or
excitement that add to the medley of atmospheric constituents. Further-
more, tacit knowledge of the kinds of atmospheres into which they enter
serve as a guide to action, offering cues about comportment, for instance,
in soliciting an awareness that we may suspend normative conventions and
adopt a more ludic disposition along with other festivalgoers. These forms
of awareness underline how engagements with particular atmospheres
are rarely solely precognitive, for previous encounters provide a relational
context for experience and practice. Indeed, those drawn to potent atmo-
spheres, and familiar with them, are quite able to articulate the presence
of atmosphere as a quality to which they are attracted and are attuned.
The coproducers of illuminated atmospheres are frequently guided by well-
entrenched anticipations, as I now discuss with regard to visitors to Black-
pool Illuminations.
At Blackpool, those walking along the seafront are coaxed into shifting
atmospheric fields as they are drawn to particular illuminations, zones,
and surrounding attractions, immersed in successive emotional phases or
pools of affect within a seething space of movement, sensation, light, and
dark. More specifically, illumination continuously changes in color, glare,
level of animation, and form of representation, qualities that oscillate,
diminish, and blaze, inculcating a focus on the lights and how they tinc-
ture surrounding spaces and materialities. Yet besides being conditioned by
these ever-changing illuminated scenarios, the flow of atmosphere is pro-
foundly affected by animated modes of social communication and spatial
engagement.
Figure 27. Postcard, Blackpool Illuminations. A convivial atmosphere has been produced at the
illuminations since the early twentieth century, and hence it provokes an air of nostalgia for
the millions of repeat visitors. Photograph by the author.
Blackpool has historically released working-class bodies from every-

day industrial discipline, feeding them, whirling them round, getting them
drunk, immersing them in sea and sand, and bedazzling them with light-
ing. For many, the temporal breaks constituted by visits to the resort are
regular, and though the seaside offers an alterity to the everyday scenario
of work and home, holiday dispositions are well known and rehearsed. For
many visitors, a deep connection with the resort and its illuminations is
grounded in repeated annual visits, part of long-standing family “tradi-
tions.” For such people, the Illuminations are somewhat of an “institution”
that they remember attending as children, along with relatives, a continuity
that underpins the conviviality of the event and how it is woven into family
lives. Practical conventions of visiting the Illuminations are thus grounded
in arriving at particular times, adopting particular routes, taking breaks for
food and other amusement, communicating with others, and articulating
feelings. The performance of these practical habits incorporates animated
verbal exchanges with strangers, laughter and playful silliness, and expres-
sive physical performances, gestures, and dancing—often in relation to the
lights—that, crucially, are coproductive of the atmosphere, not to mention
the purchasing of novelty illuminations from street traders that are worn
on the body and waved around. Moreover, these familiar dispositions and
practices are frequently oriented around emotional and affective expres-

sions of nostalgia, conviviality, continuity, and family. The potency of the
illuminated atmosphere at Blackpool thus depends on the reassembly of
those who have been part of previous atmospheres who annually arrive to
participate in a well-rehearsed, familiar “reverberation in the same, or at
least in a similar manner” (Reidel 2015, 105).
Along the illuminated seafront at Blackpool, a host of “predisposed rou-
tines, emotions and movements” are activated, and these are not merely
stage-managed (Adey 2007, 444). While the designers of the Illumina-
tions undoubtedly aim to encourage playful consumption, sensation, and
movement, to produce cheer and lightheartedness, the atmosphere also
depends on the anticipation, tacit knowledge, and social involvements gen-
erated during a collective visit. This is an integral part of the flow of atmo-
sphere coproduced by the active absorption of visitors and their successive
immersion, engagement, distraction, and attraction along the seafront.
The medley of multicolored lights, flashing, glowing, and pulsing, is sup-
plemented by the animated conversations, laughter, and movements that
ripple across space.
Blackpool Illuminations also provide a site at which the relationship
between the nonrepresentational qualities of atmosphere and the repre-
sentational impact of particular light designs can be interrogated. Marga-
ret Wetherell (2012, 22) contends that certain theories of affect are not
well served “by dividing representation from the non-representational,
marking out the former as the province of consciousness and delibera-
tion, and the latter as the province of the unconscious and the unconsid-
ered.” So it is with atmosphere, where symbolic, emotional, affective, and
sensory impacts merge. Ben Anderson (2009, 80) maintains that atmo-
spheres “mix together narrative and signifying elements and non-narrative
and asignifying elements,” a melding particularly exemplified by the asym-
bolic and symbolic qualities of light. This is appositely captured by Walter
Benjamin’s (1997, 476) assertion that commercial lighting is apt to tran-
scend its function: “What, in the end, makes advertisements so superior
to criticism? Not what the moving red neon sign says—but the fiery pool
reflecting it in the asphalt.” Blackpool Illuminations are saturated with ref-
erences to popular cultural motifs that carry semiotic weight and provoke
emotional responses from visitors, who react with enthusiasm or antipa-
thy to well-known characters from fiction, television, and film, and pop
stars and comedians. Though these designs inspire emotional responses,
they are also always more than representational, with their symbolic and
referential qualities complemented by the affective, nonrepresentational

properties of glare, brightness, color, animation, sparkle, and glow. The
illuminated atmospheres at Blackpool thus incorporate both the symbolic
and nonrepresentational qualities of lighting, and are coproduced by the
animated verbal and physical expressions of responsive visitors as well as
myriad other elements that circulate around the seafront (Edensor 2012).
Though this coproduction by designers and visitors is apparent, this
may not be so evident at other events and in other places, where the stage
managers of light seem to exert a greater control over the flux and intensity
of atmosphere. In particular, the highly choreographed deployment of illu-
mination staged at the Nazi Nuremberg rallies seems to testify to the poten-
tial for lighting to generate atmospheres that irresistibly sweep participants
up in their intoxicating, noxious atmosphere. However, in other contexts,
the coproduction of illuminated atmospheres by those for whom they are
intended highlights the variable efficacy of methods to condition atmo-
spheres by designers, artists, architects, and stage managers. To exemplify
this limitation and the extent to which engaged participation can destabi-
lize the intentions of designers and transform the atmospheres that circu-
late around sites, I discuss an artwork installed in London to commemorate
the start of World War I.
During August 4–11, 2014, residents and visitors could witness an ambi-
tious light installation, Spectra, designed by Ryoji Ikeda and sited in Victoria
Tower Gardens next to the Palace of Westminster. The work was formed by a
twenty-meter grid of forty-nine searchlights that blazed upward into the sky
from dusk to dawn. As night fell, Spectra could be seen from a distance from
multiple locations, seeming to constitute a single column of vivid white light
ascending some fifteen miles into the firmament. It constituted an unmissa-
ble point of light, supplementing the pared-down urban vista of the illumi-
nated city, defamiliarizing the skyline and charging it with a sense that some-
thing momentous was happening or being commemorated.
Variations of Ikeda’s installation have appeared in several other cities,
and like Haselden’s Fête, new associations and relationships are forged in
each location. Most obviously, because the symbolic commemoration of
war was widely broadcast across the UK in the mass media, the powerful
beam conjured up the searchlights that crisscrossed London in both world
wars. Indeed, many reviews of Spectra referred to the remark of Sir Edward
Grey, the foreign secretary of that era: “The lights are going out all over
Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.” Clearly, the instal-
lation of the work was intended to solicit the observance of this seminal
event, at least as far as the politicians and urban managers responsible for
its commission were concerned. Yet a visit to Spectra, just before midnight,
revealed that as the source of the beam was neared and all searchlights were
separately visible, the work took on an entirely different aspect to its com-
memorative function. Once the installation was confronted more closely,
the symbolic resonances of the piece diminished, with its sheer scale, affec-
tive and sensory impact, and intensity of the illumination predominating.
Collectively, the vertical projection of the gridded beams produced a giant,
immaterial cube that enclosed visitors. The unreality of this transformed
space was augmented by the ways in which it framed the palace, the trees,
the clouds, and the intermittently visible moon, and further enchanted by
minimal electronic music that drifted across the park. As Ikeda acknowl-
edges, from a distance “it looks monumental and solid, but when you are
in it, it is entirely meditative. People stare up in wonder. It causes necks to
strain. The experience is so pure and direct” (quoted in O’Hagan 2014).
Figure 28. Ryoji Ikeda, Spectra, Victoria Tower Gardens, London, 2014. This installation
intended to commemorate World War I is transformed into an occasion and a site at which a
late-night carnivalesque atmosphere reigned. Photograph by the author.
Though late in the evening, hundreds of people had been attracted to

Spectra. Within the environment formed by the beams and across the sur-
rounding lawns there was a carnivalesque, excitable frenzy of movement
and chatter, belying any expectation that visitors would soberly observe the
commemoration of the start of World War I. Many people moved among
the luminaires, weaving between separate fixtures and one another in a
tight swarm, waving arms or positioning their faces above the searchlights
while soliciting their companions to take photographs. Some adopted a
more contemplative disposition, lying on the nearby grass, staring up into
the disappearing points of light as they converged into a single beam miles
above; others drank wine or conversed. Spectra thus fostered an excitable
scene of interactivity, sparking collective playfulness, effusive discussion,
and lingering fascination as people shifted and stretched out through the
park, becoming attuned to the unusual illuminated environment. Affec-
tive intensities gathered and dispersed, as groups departed the scene and
new clusters arrived, becoming absorbed into the rhythm of the event and
producing surges of excitable behavior when the chimes of Big Ben inter-
rupted the passage of events or the moon suddenly shone through the
clouds. People contributed to the scene in accordance with their own affec-
tive, emotional, and sensory responses to the installation. The conduct of
visitors to Spectra highlights how the staging of illumination to produce
particular atmospheric effects can be confounded by those who react play-
fully, irreverently, and convivially, thereby transforming the flow of atmo-
sphere from sober to carnivalesque.
Producing Homespun Atmospheres with Interior Illumination

The coproduction of illuminated atmospheres discussed above reveals
that the staging techniques deployed by powerful commercial, political,
and artistic agents form only one, albeit key, element in producing atmo-
sphere. In this final section, drawing attention to how atmospheres also
suffuse everyday, mundane space, I consider how household members use
an array of lighting designs and procedures to orchestrate the atmospheres
of their homes. The production of domestic atmospheres is a key concern
among an increasing number of design-conscious, reflexive householders
who are informed by the expanding opportunities offered to consumers by
the lighting design industry.
However, the use of illumination to foster particular aesthetics and
atmospheres is not new. Wolfgang Schivelbusch (1988) elaborates on
how the nineteenth-century expansion of domestic gas and electric light

was accompanied by reflexive endeavors to shape mood and atmosphere
in the home. He explains how many householders initially refused to use
the newly supplied gas, for they preferred the warm glow offered by fires,
candles, and paraffin and oil-lamps around which families gathered to
converse or read, sources of light regarded as more conducive to a cozy
domestic atmosphere. Perceptions about the harshness of gas and electric
light also stimulated householders to modulate the daylight that poured
into rooms by diffusing and dampening the sun’s rays with muslin and
gauze curtains. The gradual penetration of the flatter tones of electric light
into the home provoked householders to decorate interiors with a greater
range of colors as well as installing Tiffany lampshades. Toning down the
brightness of artificial and natural light, and using color on walls and in
stained glass to bestow a mild radiance on rooms, kindled atmospheres in
the increasingly private bourgeois home.
The Victorian era in Britain also saw the emergence of the modern
Christmas, which included imported customs of illuminating the tree with
candles, a tradition that has continued and expanded—most recently with
the aforementioned garbing of house exteriors with vibrant illumination.
Jennifer Mason and Stewart Muir (2013, 615) explore how festive design
and domestic rituals annually sustain the atmospheres of family Christ-
mases. Key ingredients include adorning the tree with ornaments and
lights, putting up decorations, emptying stockings and unwrapping pres-
ents, pulling crackers, feasting, and playing games. This dense accumula-
tion of home-making procedures constitute a sequence of “embodied and
material practices, happenings and stimuli” that can generate a rich festive
atmosphere in the home.
Collective practices involving illumination are integral to the production
of distinctively festive atmospheres in domestic spaces, yet most of the time,
homespun atmospheres are produced in more mundane circumstances,
informed by forms of tacit knowledge, shared tastes, and moral conventions.
The production of such everyday illuminated atmospheres is investigated by
Sarah Pink and Kerstin Mackley, who have carried out ethnographic research
that identifies these everyday, often unreflexive though sometimes improvi-
satory adaptations to domestic circumstances. As part of an embodied way
of being and knowing familiar space, their research participants made their
homes “feel right” sensorially and affectively through routine practice. These
everyday modes of sensing space included the habitual modulation of light
and darkness in the “making and maintaining of the atmosphere of the

night-time home,” for instance, by maintaining quiescence and darkness as
other family members slept (Pink and Mackley 2014, 5).
This research focuses on how individual family members condition
domestic atmospheres. More extensive, widely shared cultural practices
of toning homespun atmospheres is exemplified in Bille’s discussion of the
Danish practice of producing coziness through lighting, a practice that
extends into public and commercial spaces but is especially pertinent in
producing domestic aesthetics. This affective and aesthetic orchestration
of space to maintain the condition of hygge, loosely translated as coziness
but also connoting intimacy, conviviality, and enclosedness, by deploy-
ing hyggelys, or “cozy-light,” is a key element of Danish national identity,
widely practiced in the long, dark winter months. The widespread use of
candles and other forms of low-level illumination tinctures the surround-
ings, blurs the boundaries between things, and shapes a vague, enfold-
ing, intimate space, whose outside devolves into gloom. Bille indicates
how hygge is maintained through continuous modulation as switches are
used to monitor light levels and candles are moved around and replaced to
maintain an atmosphere conducive to relaxation, coziness, enclosure, and
convivial informality but also, according to different registers and intensi-
ties, solitude. He also points to how light is used “visually and affectively
in everyday life to connect and separate people and things through the
atmosphere it creates,” reiterating collective conventions and reproducing
shared habits of lighting interiors that reinforce a broader sense of com-
munity. Such social and cultural connection is established by reproduc-
ing distinctive relations between outside and inside, whereby hyggelys cast
from within the house is seen by those outside, a visibility that forges “a
way of connecting with people and creating an image of openness,” rein-
forcing normative social aesthetics and expressions of being together (Bille
2015, 60–61). This shared light culture allows those attuned to its aes-
thetics to feel at home, secure and part of a wider community. However,
those who do not accord with such practices, for instance, migrants who
use brighter forms of domestic illumination, are transparently not part
of these national atmospheres. So important is the production of hygge to
Danes that though government policy has insisted that incandescent light
bulbs be phased out on the grounds of nonsustainability, many people have
hoarded them while scorning more energy-efficient LEDs. The supposedly
colder color temperature of the LED is conceived as inimical to the produc-
tion of hygge, atmospherically sterile and lacking the cozy glow germane to
intimacy, conviviality, and relaxation (Bille 2013).
In other cultural and geographical contexts, different traditions inform
the aesthetics and atmospheres of home. For instance, Inge Daniels (2015)
shows how illumination is deployed in Japanese homes as part of a bright-
ness associated with modernity. In another example, Bille discusses how
the window glass in Bedouin dwellings in Jordan is tinted green to symboli-
cally keep evil spirits at bay, spreading a greenish light throughout rooms
and radiating light outward at night. The green light connotes divine pres-
ence and thereby entrenches everyday feelings of domestic comfort. Inte-
rior central artificial illumination also minimizes shadows in which malign
forces might lurk, further contributing to the domestic atmospheres to
which Bedouin are habitually attuned. A final example comes from a very
different cultural context, namely, Canadian off-gridders (Vannini and Tag-
gart 2013b). In the wilds of nature, these off-gridders adopt self-reliant,
creative strategies to harness the sunlight needed to power their homes.
Though illumination tends to be less intense and in shorter supply than
that of grid-based homes, the satisfaction of off-gridders is inspired by the
fact that only through their resourcefulness can its supply be guaranteed.
Accordingly, a sense of domestic well-being is generated by these accom-
plishments, and illuminated atmosphere cannot be dissociated from this
practical self-sufficiency, as well as a disposition to comfortably accommo-
date themselves to this smaller amount of light.
The examples discussed above highlight the specificity of the cultural
values and practices that inform the production of homespun atmospheres
with illumination. Though these geographical specificities remain strong,
the provision of an enormously expanding range of lighting technologies is
offering wider possibilities for householders to orchestrate the atmospheres
of their homes. For instance, in the UK, the formerly dominant central ceil-
ing light is increasingly replaced or augmented by portable lamps, novelty
lights, standard lamps, spotlights, nostalgic items such as lava and Tiffany
lamps, candles, and wall lights, among numerous other options, that allow
domestic space to be reconfigured according to season, purpose, and frame
of mind. The atmosphere of individual rooms may be regularly altered, and
different rooms in a single dwelling may be bestowed with different tones and
moods. In addition, the advent of switches that permit subtle gradations in
light intensity to be modulated, interactive software that encourages the
use of variable and shifting color radiance, and animated installations offer
multiple options to increasingly reflexive, design-conscious home owners

who are attuned to the variegated emotional, sensory, and affectual pal-
ettes with which to orchestrate domestic atmospheres.
Conclusion
Though we may only become conscious of it when we are immersed in an
especially potent setting, atmospheres pervade all the spaces and times we
experience. Their ever-fluid emergence incorporates a changing array of
elements that combine and intensify, and mesh with our moods and those
of others. Despite their often diffuse, ineffable qualities, the potential for
atmospheres to condition our feelings about places, express power, and
provide comfortable settings within which we feel at home or are alienated
makes them worthy of exploration. Indeed, atmospheres have been pres-
ent in all the examples I have discussed throughout this book—in the con-
vivial vibe generated by Chris Burden’s Urban Light, the oppressive tones
of the stars atop the Kremlin’s spires, and the strange rurality conjured at
the Enchanted Forest. In this chapter, I have insisted that light is an integral
element of atmospheres. As discussed in the first chapter, it inflects every-
thing with its radiance, toning and tuning the spaces within which we live.
Light transforms the materialities on which it falls and the media that it
suffuses, so that these elements radiate ecstatic effects beyond themselves
within a relational field, tincturing surroundings. In focusing on artificial
light, I have analyzed how atmospheres are staged by skilled practitioners
such as theater designers, rock concert technicians, engineers of com-
mercial spaces, organizers of large festivals and rallies, artists, and even
virtual designers. Yet though the impact of these atmospheric orchestra-
tors can be compelling in disseminating mood, meaning, and sensation,
the subjective-objective dynamic that produces the ongoing experience
of atmospheres means that it can be resisted or that it may repulse those
unwilling or unable to become attuned to it. Accordingly, in drawing atten-
tion to light as an interactive medium, I have insisted that atmospheres are
coproduced by those within their midst.
The examples I provide dispute notions that affect or atmospheres are
entities into which we are suddenly plunged and passively entangled.
People frequently resist newly imposed forms of lighting, as with the repul-
sion toward gaslight by nineteenth-century householders, later dissatis-
faction at the replacement of gas streetlights with the supposedly harsher
glow of electric lighting, and the reluctance of Danish inhabitants to adopt
LEDs championed by government (Kenny 2015). Such intrusions make
space strange by negatively modifying atmospheric tones and moods.

Moreover, we usually actively coproduce atmospheres, whether through
mobilizing the anticipatory disposition that visitors bring to Blackpool Illu-
minations that shape their engagements and experiences, communally
participating with interactive and festive light installations, or assembling
with others and playfully improvising within the space produced by a cap-
tivating, superluminous, commemorative artwork, Spectra. Though teams
of designers and artists have skillfully produced such effects, they are not
merely passively beheld.
In developing the argument against passive immersion, I considered
how householders are not merely recipients of the affective and sensory
engineering strategies of others but deploy illumination themselves to con-
dition the atmospheres of their homes. In orchestrating domestic atmo-
spheres, these inhabitants articulate shared symbolic and aesthetic con-
ventions, expressing collective religious, festive, eco-centric, national, and
other cultural values that may be inclusive but can also act to exclude those
unfamiliar with their arrangements or disinclined to modulate their home
lighting in accordance with these cultural norms. These examples under-
gird the mundane uses and effects of illumination and echo the themes dis-
cussed in chapter 2 about how we become habituated to the play of light
within the environments within which we dwell. In these everyday realms,
we mobilize culturally specific ways of getting things done, of aestheti-
cizing space and shaping its meanings with everyday fixtures. We orga-
nize ways of being comfortable, foster hominess, and align ourselves with
particular rhythms. Accordingly, toning these domestic, mundane atmo-
spheres through illumination is one of the overlooked practices through
which we routinely reproduce space and the cultural norms, affects, sensa-
tions, and meanings it contains and which we impute to it, contributing to
what Raymond Williams (1977) refers to as “structures of feeling.” These
atmospheric qualities further underpin my contention that light is simulta-
neously symbolic, affective, and sensory.
Part III Dark
Chapter 7 Nocturnes:
Changing Meanings of Darkness
An All-Pervasive Darkness
Darkness has largely been banished from the city through what Craig Kos
lofsky (2011) calls “nocturnalisation,” the expansion of social and eco-
nomic activity into the night and the subsequent spread of illumination, a
process that continues to be informed by moral and modernist discourses,
as well as lasting fears about darkness. There are still urban areas that re-
main unlit after dark, typically swathes of wasteland or large parks, yet
even in these realms, illumination surrounds the gloom and casts its light
across them. As the nighttime economy extends into more areas of the city,
light blazes away, banishing darkness from regions in which it formerly
persisted. This accords with Murray Melbin’s (1978) characterization of
illumination as a form of colonization, extending a frontier into the night’s
darkness. This colonization continues to expand as nightclubs stay open
later, leisure services and entertainment districts swell, all-night retail out-
lets multiply, television never ceases, along with trading on the global fi-
nance markets, and urban districts service the needs of shift workers.
Because we have become so habituated to the ubiquitous presence of elec-
tric illumination, it is now difficult to imagine the pervasive darkness that
formerly saturated most space after nightfall. It is only in the last two centu-
ries that this persistent gloom has been ameliorated, yet though it is a distant
memory, cultural understandings about darkness continue to be informed by
these earlier times. While the meanings and practices associated with dark
space have been primarily negative, at least in Western culture, they have
always been accompanied by those who cherish gloom. As I demonstrate,
while contemporary overillumination has rendered it deeply unfamiliar,
darkness is being pursued in novel ways and is being revalued as a positive
condition that offers diverse experiences and unaccustomed sensations.
165
166 Nocturnes
These reconceptualizations of darkness should not blind us to the very

real dangers, discomforts, and inconveniences that suffused everyday
life before the dawn of widespread illumination. As Roger Ekirch details,
numerous hazards imperiled those venturing out into the medieval town
after nightfall. Piles of rubbish, filthy ditches and culverts, excrement-
laden streets, and overhanging timbers provided some of the urban noc-
turnal risks, while those traveling beyond the city walls suffered accidents,
stumbling into “fallen trees, thick underbrush, steep hillsides and open
trenches” (Ekirch 2005, 123). It was not only hazards posed by the dis-
ordered streets, undulating landscape, and murky conditions that encour-
aged many to stay inside, for robbers, murderers, burglars, and arsonists
might seek cover in the darkness. As cities grew, the subsequent increase
in violent gangs and criminals provided further reason to stay indoors. To
keep the real and imagined perils of the night at bay, householders per-
formed the daily ritual of “shutting in,” bolting doors and positioning
swords and cudgels next to beds to guard against nocturnal intrusion.
To protect inhabitants against those who used darkness to conceal their
nefarious activities, medieval towns typically organized a watch to guard
against fire, interlopers, and unidentified nocturnal wanderers. In the dark,
friends and foes could be mistaken, and all were apt to be subject to sus-
picion. Many towns locked the gates at night once sundown approached,
prohibiting entry to those who arrived too late and were consequently con-
signed to spend the night in the greater darkness outside the walls.
Gloom permeated the spaces inside most houses, with rudimentary
candles providing small patches of light, a modicum of illumination amid
the blackness. The sheer effort to maintain this flickering presence was
unrelenting for households unable to afford higher quality night light, as
inhabitants endeavored to keep the wick of the tallow fat candles trimmed
to prevent excess smoke and the ever-present threat that they would be
extinguished. Outside the house, candles and lanterns were carried to light
the way, but could easily be blown out by the wind. Later, in early mod-
ern cities, the services of linkboys could be purchased as guides through
the dark streets, yet suspicions persisted that they might lead the unwary
traveler into the clutches of criminal gangs with whom they associated
(Schivelbusch 1988).
Despite these unpropitious conditions, pervasive darkness also solicited
the development of practical competencies. Knowledge of the constella-
tions in the sky and the phases of the moon was common and could be
used as guides through dark space when cloud cover was thin or absent.
Nocturnes 167
Similarly, visual skill in interpreting the dark forms and variegated tex-
tures of gloomy space was more acute. The path ahead could be discerned
according to the multiple ways in which moonlight transforms landscape,
the “changing colours and contours in its shape-shifting light,” a variety of
possibilities that, according to James Attlee (2011, 5), would be “too subtle
for our modern eye to appreciate.”
Those who customarily navigated through dark space became keenly
aware of sounds and smells as a way to identify familiar spatial configu-
rations. Distinctive surfaces and gradients underfoot became recognizable
through an enhanced tactile sense of place and might be further enabled
by making notches in surfaces by which to identify points on the journey.
Inhabitants might also practice echolocation, using handclaps and shouts
to pinpoint their whereabouts. Ekirch explains how parents would devise
games for their children to inculcate regular exposure to darkness, taking
them out on night walks and testing their predilection for locating place by
touch, instilling a habitual, nonvisual sensory familiarity with local land-
marks and hazards. These sensory skills highlight how darkness encourages
the acquisition of a reconfigured visual and nonvisual sensory aptitude.
Nyctophobia
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
In medieval times, besides the evident threats it posed to health and safety,
darkness was the occasion for all manner of invisible, spectral, ungodly
forces to emerge, negative associations that continue to linger across West-
ern popular culture. In historical periods in which superstition was reinforced
by fear of the unseen and the inexplicability of certain natural phenomena,
as Jacques Galinier et al. (2010, 820) contend, “darkness plays an impor-
tant symbolic role as a metaphor of pagan obscurantism—deviancy, mon-
strosity, diabolism.” Negative associations of gloom continuously reemerge
in medieval periods and extend into early modern eras as darkness contin-
ued to pervade nocturnal experience. In times when the extensive authority
of the church shaped everyday understandings, with Satan at large on the
Earth, and additional widespread belief in the power of a host of supernatu-
ral forces, it is not surprising that the night held multifarious terrors. Besides
constituting the realm in which the devil carried out his work, his powers
168 Nocturnes
magnified, and his cohorts swarmed through dark space, a medley of other
malign and peculiar spirits lurked, including imps, hobgoblins, ghouls, bog-
garts, and witches, and those especially linked with the dark such as night
demons, black dogs, bogeymen, and the Norse dökkálfar, or dark elves. The
shadowy night seemed to contain a host of insubstantial entities for imagina-
tions stimulated by ghost stories, folk beliefs, and religiously inspired terrors.
Even inside the house, visitations from ghosts and poltergeists were feared,
inverting domestic space from a safe haven into an uncontrollable, uncanny
realm. Outside, the sight of unusual phenomena in the landscape was inter-
preted as supernatural. For instance, the marsh gas emitted in swamps was
conceived as a will o’ the wisp, a ghost light conjured by fairies to lure travel-
ers to their doom by drowning.
In contrast to the sinister forces that gathered in darkness, associations
of light with divinity and goodness saturate Christian belief. This is under-
lined at the start of the Bible, in Genesis 1:2–5, which describes how noth-
ing existed, and all was subsumed in darkness, until God created light and
saw that it was good and separated it from that darkness. In John Milton’s
(2008, 83) Paradise Lost, this is poetically rendered: “Confusion heard his
voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his
second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.”
Yet the darkness of the Bible is of two kinds, as Elisabeth Bronfen (2008)
points out, the black primordial nothingness that preceded God’s creation,
and the night, with its stars and moon that came after, foregrounding the
ambiguity of gloom. Yet notions that a metaphorical darkness preceded the
advent of Christ and that the state of death is described as “darkness” and
the “shadow” are deeply embedded in Western thought. In contrast, life,
heaven, and salvation from death and ignorance is conceived as light, as
exemplified in Ephesians 5:8: “you were once darkness, but now you are
light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of
goodness and righteousness and truth.” Koslofsky (2011) identifies the
continuing associations of darkness throughout the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries with witchcraft and devilry, heresy, sin and death, the
struggle of the devout through “the long night of the soul,” where faith
was threatened by temptation and terror.
These negative Christian depictions were transmuted into narratives
signifying the transcendent shift from dark to light that symbolized passage
from medieval ignorance to rationality and science. The Enlightenment,
as the term signifies, heralded a process that was explicitly concerned to
“shed light on all things” in the pursuit of “truth, purity, revelation and
Nocturnes 169
knowledge,” embodying the ideals of “illumination, objectivity and wis-

dom” (Bille and Sørensen 2007, 272–73). According to Michel Foucault
(1980, 153), Enlightenment discourse drew attention to “the pall of gloom
which prevents the full visibility of things, men and truths,” the ignorance
that shrouded knowledge and kept people in the dark. The metaphorical
meanings of the term enlightenment have been consistently aligned with a
belief in the progressive and moral desirability of actually banishing dark-
ness. This is captured in a maxim from the pioneering electric light entre-
preneur Thomas Edison, that if we “put an undeveloped human being into
an environment where there is artificial light . . . he will improve” (quoted
in Ekirch 2007, 207). Actually and symbolically, illumination banished the
condition of darkness. Such effusions reached their apotheosis in Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti’s futurist manifesto of 1909 with the espousal that we
should aim to “kill the moonlight” in the surge toward a dynamic future
of technological advancement and efficiency. Marinetti regarded moon-
light as synonymous with superstition and traditional myth, and an infe-
rior source of nocturnal illumination that should be erased by brilliant,
human-made lighting (Attlee 2011).
The permeation of this fear of the dark—nyctophobia—and these reli-
gious and modern allusions that cross cultures, spaces, and times extend
into other judgments, with darkness persistently linked with negative
understandings of particular settings. British racist colonial discourse
assigned Africa as the “Dark Continent,” replete with animist and idola-
trous faiths, ignorance, and barbarism, qualities that could be overcome
by the enlightening “civilizing mission.” In the bourgeois imagination, the
metaphor was extended to identify “Darkest London,” the realm of the rook-
eries and slums in which the slothful, criminal, feckless classes lived and
which required urgent social reform. In eighteenth-century urban Amer-
ica, the upright, morally conscious imagined that “rakes, scavengers, and
thieves made their way through the inky blackness of the streets” (Baldwin
2004, 751). Such lurid imaginaries and negative references continue to
imbue Western thought and language. We speak of the “Dark Ages,” “dark
forces,” “dark deeds,” “dark thoughts,” and the “dark side.”
Such allusions still pervade contemporary cultural values. In nineteenth-
century bourgeois thought, darkness symbolized the decadence that had to
be overcome in order to create a city of responsible, autonomous, ratio-
nally oriented, liberal citizens (Otter 2008). Not only did darkness signify
backwardness, a hindrance to modern urban efficiency, regulation, and
health, but it was also conceived as an obstruction to moral behavior and
170 Nocturnes
entwined with a profound sensory impoverishment. More recently, the

emergence of “dark tourism” connotes the contemporary tendency to visit
places of atrocity and suffering, and in popular science fiction literature
and cinema, scenarios that herald a forthcoming apocalypse or dystopia
frequently deploy darkness as a metaphorical descent toward brutality, and
de-evolution. Furthermore, Yi-Fu Tuan (1978, 8) contends that in popular
geographical perceptions, darkness continues to join wasteland and wide
expanses of water as “types of primordial chaos.”
Positive Understandings and Practices of Darkness

Though negative conceptions of the dark continue to pervade contempo-
rary ideas and condition social practices, nyctophobia is not culturally and
historically universal, and it has not been shared by all people, not even
during times of scarce illumination. Dominant negative depictions of dark-
ness are supplemented by multivalent understandings. Koslofsky (2011, 5)
identifies a range of conceptions, where darkness has symbolized “a dia-
bolical night, nocturnal devotion, honest labour at night, and a night of
drunken excess and indiscipline,” as well as being conducive to convivial-
ity, intimacy, experimentation, and excitement. As Robert Williams (2008,
514) argues, urban darkness does not trigger essential human responses
but is always mediated by human practices and values: “Night spaces are
neither uniform nor homogenous. Rather they are constituted by social
struggles about what should and should not happen in certain places dur-
ing the dark of the night.” Accordingly, darkness is profoundly ambivalent
and multiply contested. It has not only been construed as terrifying, foster-
ing deviance and disorder, and antithetical to enlightenment and reason,
but positively valued in many ways.
A sense of the generative capacities of darkness can be considered by
exploring alternative premodern nocturnal values. Bronfen (2008) depicts
the Greek night goddess Nyx as an ambiguous divinity, associated with
death and strife, but also with dreams and love. Veronica Della Dora iden-
tifies the appeal of the gloomy caves sought by early ascetic eastern Chris-
tians. Rather than offer the sensual plenitude and visual revelation of large
vistas of the landscape that confirmed God’s work, the cave was a site of
prayer and retreat in which the very lack of vision promoted apophatic reli-
gious intimations; it was beyond the capacity of humans to understand the
divine or express it meaningfully. For these denizens, “Visual presence con-
ceals spiritual absence; visual absence invites divine presence” (Della Dora
2011, 762). Similarly, Koslofsky (2011) draws attention to the growth of a
Nocturnes 171
mystical theology in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe that also

promoted meditation within dark caves. Darkness inspired new forms of
piety, metaphorically encapsulating the religious struggle toward the light
and the path from earthly gloom to illuminated afterlife. Caves solicited a
form of devotion in which darkness was valued as conducive to mystery,
profundity, and beauty, and an acknowledgment of the ineffability and
inexpressibility of God. More extensive use of darkness is used in Taoist
meditation, where staying in a completely lightless room for short or pro-
longed periods is conducive to lucid dreaming and enhanced spirituality,
as well as the supposedly beneficial effects of melatonin production. Such
desires for complete gloom are not only motivated by religious and spiritual
desires, for as Chet Raymo (2008) explains, in the bardic schools of ancient
Ireland, young poets were sent to cells that contained only a bed and were
enclosed in total darkness. An environment free of visual distractions, it
was believed, offered the most fertile conditions in which to compose poetry.
These sacred and meditative practices have been given renewed impetus
by the rise of New Age religious beliefs (Heelas 1996). Jennifer Fisher and
Jim Drobnick discuss a performative, experiential event held during Toron-
to’s Nuit Blanche festival, in which people encountered a line of eleven sus-
pended “witches’ cradles,” props formerly deployed to torture those accused
of witchcraft in the Middle Ages but subsequently reclaimed by occultists to
stimulate altered states and mystical experiences. Audience members were
hoisted in the cradles, supplied with earplugs and blindfolds, and suspended
for fifteen minutes, during which they experienced tactile and olfactory
impressions as well as falling into deep states of relaxation (Fisher and Drob-
nick 2012). Other contemporary New Age therapeutic treatments include
full sensory deprivation in flotation tanks and versions of the Native Ameri-
can traditional sweat lodge ceremony, in which a ritualized cleansing of the
mind, body, and spirit is provided by entering an environment of intense heat
and throbbing drums. An overwhelming focus on one’s heartbeat is facili-
tated by the very dark interiors in which the ritual takes place, the circular
or oval shape of the chamber representing both universe and womb, and the
darkness symbolizing the time before birth or creation.
Although I have discussed the terrors wrought by the onset of darkness
in medieval domestic space, darkness also provided fertile settings for social
and familial interaction. For in these times, night was not conceived as a
single stretch but was typically marked by the regular rhythms of “sun-
set, shutting in, candle-lighting, bed-time, midnight, the dead of night,
cock-crow and dawn,” temporal phases that provided different experiences
172 Nocturnes
and engagements (Ekirch 2005, 138). More strikingly, before the advent
of industrial work schedules and widespread illumination, sleep patterns
were characterized by a first sleep—which might begin after dark and after
four hours or so cease during what we now refer to as the middle of the
night—followed by a second, shorter, lighter slumber. In between these two
spells, an hour or two was spent in wakefulness in the dark, during which
numerous activities could take place. For many, this was a welcome inter-
lude from work and provided opportunities to share stories or converse,
have sex, lie in thoughtful repose and reverie, or pray. These earlier social
or solitary experiences away from mundane cares indicate how darkness
might provide “a conduit for new forms of conviviality and camaraderie”
(Gallan and Gibson 2011, 2514).
In modern times, those who shun urban darkness contrast with those
who seek out gloom. As William Sharpe (2008, 14) rather romantically
notes, a “second city—with its own geography and its own set of citizens”
emerges when daylight fades. For despite hegemonic desires to bathe the city
in light, positive evaluations of darkness have contested the march of illumi-
nation across urban space. I have already referred to the lantern smashing in
opposition to an intensified policing of the night. Ever since, there has been
continuous conflict between seekers of dark spaces and those who authori-
tatively aim to extend surveillance across the nocturnal city. A colonizing
illumination has been resisted by “the traditional inhabitants of the night:
servants, apprentices and students . . . tavern visitors, prostitutes” and work-
ers and pleasure seekers among others who find succor, opportunity, excite-
ment, and refuge in the dark (Koslofsky 2011, 278).
Besides criminal activities, sedition, political opposition, illicit romances,
subcultural practices, urban exploration, flyer posting, and graffiti writing
typically take place under cover of darkness. Bryan Palmer (2000, 16–17)
conceives darkness to promote not only states of disconsolation and alien-
ation but also transgression, as the occasion for “daylight’s dispossessed—
the deviant, the dissident, the different” to emerge. Darkness thus provides
opportunities for clandestine, revolutionary, and conspiratorial activi-
ties and fostering imaginative, creative challenges to daytime norms of
commerce, economic rationality, and regulation. In the dark, persecuted
minorities, marginal groups, and the lower classes may escape domineer-
ing masters, carve out time and space outside working time, achieve “free-
dom from both labour and social scrutiny,” and organize politically (Ekirch
2005, 227). Besides providing a cloak for the activities of Black Panthers,
chartists, proletarian insurrectionists, and other opponents of political
Nocturnes 173
hegemony, darkness also provided the conditions for those subject to colo-
nial brutalities to restore aspects of their identity and culture. For example,
Galinier et al. (2010, 828) refer to the Mesoamericans and Andeans who
escaped the violence of Spanish imperial power by confining “indigenous
knowledge and practices to the hidden recesses of the night.” Similarly,
Palmer (2000) mentions the African American slaves who forged a collec-
tivity in the darkness.
Night also remains the time when the demimonde of the city comes
to life, as witches, prostitutes, bohemians, beatniks, drug dealers, revolu-
tionaries, conspirators, and heretics come out to play, plot, and do busi-
ness. Moreover, cultural settings offer late-night, often gloomy settings
for burlesque entertainment and for blues and jazz musicians, nurtur-
ing ideas that darkness is associated with libidinal desires, transgressive
sexualities, and mystical practices, providing a realm in which “counters
to . . . conventional wisdom find a space to grow and growl” (454). The
phantasmagorical nighttime city has been promoted in numerous cultural
representations. The rise of a nocturnal sublime, a “realm of fascination
and fear which inhabits the edges of our existence, crowded by shadows,
plagued by uncertainty, and shrouded in intrigue,” has romanticized the
urban night (Sharpe 2008, 9). It has become a time of libidinal charge
and transgression, replete with “sensualities and sociabilities, aesthetics
and the art of resistance,” a “dark moment of human estrangement” yet
filled with alluring thrills and adventures (Palmer 2000, 394). Darkness
retains this potency, offering an occasion “for trying to be someone the day-
time may not let you be, a time for meeting people you should not, for doing
things your parents told you not to do” (van Liempt et al. 2015, 408).
For instance, the dark streets of London have forever constituted a
realm into which nightwalkers plunge in order to experience various kinds
of thrilling alterity. Matthew Beaumont (2015) depicts the allure of strid-
ing out into the capital’s darkness for a cast of writers from the sixteenth to
the nineteenth century, walkers who made their way through the noctur-
nal labyrinth before and after the advent of gaslight. Charting picaresque
adventures, fabulating on what was obscure, wallowing in darkness’s aes-
thetic charge, portraying a “Victorian noir,” or expending pent-up ener-
gies, Beaumont discusses accounts of the London night from writers
including John Clare, William Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, Charles
Dickens, and Edgar Allan Poe.
In the twentieth century, Sharpe (2008, 7) describes how representations
of New York City after dark variously suggest “a snare, a canvas, a foreign
174 Nocturnes
land, a fantasy, a stage.” He highlights the contributions of key artists and

photographers, including the images of lurid accidents and alienation cap-
tured by Weegee, and the paintings of Edward Hopper. The fantastic urban
chiaroscuro of film noir specifically conjures up dreamlike, unsettling
dimensions that feature flawed characters and chaotic lives, despair and
decadence, danger and erotic suggestion. Weird camera angles, smoke and
rain, reflections, shafts of disorientating light, and pools of darkness capture
the femme fatales, corrupt officials, gangsters, and hard-bitten, jaded heroes
in the midst of a mire of greed, lust, and corruption. According to Palmer
(2000, 392), film noir captures “the distorted shadows of night’s always
unfulfilled dreams, sliding inevitably into the sinister hole of nightmarish
fears” in a nocturnal, gothic Babylon. Significantly, in this sensual and aes-
thetic reconfiguring of the night, darkness is complementary to light, a sen-
sual (dis)ordering and revaluing that contrasts with the rationalizing and
moral bourgeois order imposed by illumination. This exemplifies the ambiva
lence that continuously surrounds darkness and the complex relational
dynamics between light and dark.
Besides the appeal of urban darkness to bohemian, illicit, and libidinous
practices and the captivating representations so pervasive in particular
forms of cinema, graphic fiction, advertisements, painting, and photogra-
phy, other sites in which to experience darkness emerged in the modern
city. At an intimate level, darkrooms provided a small space for focused
concentration in which photographers could pore over chemical solutions
to scrutinize the appearance of images appearing in trays. As illumination
increasingly colonized areas of the nineteenth century, contrasting areas
of darkness, formerly conceived as inimical to pleasure, became associated
with new desires and pleasures. In Paris, for artists and writers, dark alleys
and streets came to possess an otherness, a mystery at variance to the lit
world (Bressani 2015). During the great infrastructural developments of
nineteenth-century London, new dark realms became sites of fascination,
places of danger and desire, notably the tunnels, cellars, and sewers that
fueled the imaginations of Victorian novelists. Such fantasies resonate
with contemporary cinematic portrayals of subterranean gloom and the
aesthetics of film noir. These include the atmospheric settings of the Vien-
nese sewers in the Third Man, the London underground in Quatermass and
the Pit and Deathline, and the gloomy environment of the New York’s sub-
way system in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) (Brunsdon 2006).
Such representations include documentation of those reputed to be dwell-
ing underground in the latter realm (Pike 1998).
Nocturnes 175
In addition, the conversion of the theater, and subsequently the cinema,

into a darkened auditorium in which attention was focused on the illu-
minated stage or luminous film also created new spaces of intimacy and
fantasy. Indeed, as Noam Elcott (2012, 74) asserts, darkness was “writ-
ten into cinema operating manuals” and continues to pervade movie the-
aters, intensifying the audience’s absorption in the shifting patterns of
light on-screen. Darkness was also an integral part of the appeal of other
attractions. Alice Barnaby (2009) focuses on London’s eighteenth-century
pleasure grounds, Vauxhall Gardens, where illuminated spectacles that
included varied lamps, transparent paintings, mirrors, fireworks, and dio
ramas were supplemented by dark attractions. The Hermit’s Grotto, Subma-
rine Caves, and Dark Walk produced a recreational space in which visitors
could experience depths of light and darkness. Some visitors regarded these
spaces as encouraging deviance and impropriety, while others found them
exciting, exemplifying the contested cultural values that surround dark-
ness. The Hermit’s Grotto and Submarine Caves adopted from the arche-
typal eighteenth-century picturesque landscape designs of aristocratic
estates offered a romantic, mysterious, and fantastic realm in which a tac-
tile encounter with darkness encouraged excitable social interaction. At
the Dark Walk, lower levels of light heightened imagination and fostered
more relaxed, spontaneous ways of moving, but also offered opportuni-
ties for pickpocketing, sexual activity, and violence, provoking divergent
opinions. The debate concluded with the demise of the Dark Walk through
more extensive illumination, but its disappearance was lamented by many.
In contemporary times, the libidinal potential of darkness has reemerged in
the dark rooms of gay subculture, offering a space in which men may seek
out anonymous sexual intimacy.
Early modern fairgrounds used new technologies that facilitated rapid
mechanized transit and greater control of illumination, and also deployed
darkness to accentuate carnival thrills. Tunnels of love, in which rid-
ers were taken by two-passenger boats through dark passages in fabri-
cated environments featured two major themes: a relaxing romantic ride
encouraging intimate contact between couples or a spooky horror ride
that inspired the pair to cling to each other, permitting a close physical
contact that would otherwise be subject to social disapproval. Blackpool
Pleasure Beach installed the still-extant River Caves in 1910, with shifts
in direction and surprise views appearing out of the darkness. The Plea-
sure Beach is also home to the world’s first Ghost Train, an attraction that
similarly depends on passage through a turning, twisting dark route, with
176 Nocturnes
key features including unseen whistles and hooters, air blowers, cobwebs
brushing the face, opening coffins, springing ghouls, and optical illusions.
This feast of carnivalesque gothic is described by Fred Botting (1996, 3) as
an “overabundance of imaginative frenzy, untamed by reason.”
These gothic thrills also pervaded the popular spiritualist séances held
in the lightless parlors of Victorian England, where mediums endeavored to
contact the deceased by acting as a channel for its spirit through the occult
means of joining hands around a table to create a “spiritual circle.” Dark-
ness, it was contended, served as the most auspicious conditions in which
spirit would appear, though skeptics point out that this also enabled sleight
of hand and fraudulent maneuvers such as producing ectoplasm and other
signs of supernatural presence that fooled gullible participants. Darkness is
also experienced during contemporary ghost tours and hunts, an increas-
ingly popular tourist activity across cities in the UK and the United States.
Julian Holloway (2010, 630) details an organized ghost hunt in Salford’s
venerable Ordsall Hall at the point that the lights were dimmed. He com-
ments on how he and others were “filled by a sense of unease as the lay-
out and dimensions of rooms, doorways, objects, and artefacts lose their
recently gained familiarity” and doors opened into “spaces of fascination,
spaces without inhabitation, spaces filled with the potential for mysteri-
ous shapes, outlines, and noises.” This restricted sight provoked a listening
“more highly attuned to knocks, taps, breathing, and other noises.” The
condition of darkness fosters the willful suspension of belief integral to the
playful quest for intimations of the mysterious and ineffable.
The fantastical was also provoked by colonial encounters with darkness.
Julian Baker (2015) focuses on the nineteenth-century historical context
of British travelers in India and how they moved through the night to avoid
the heat of the day. Imbued with intimations of the exotic, the orientalist,
and the tropical, these aesthetic sensibilities conditioned the phantasma-
gorical imagination with which these colonial travelers encountered noc-
turnal landscapes. By the light of campfires, murky scenes incorporated
elephants and bullocks, singing Indian servants, and fantastic shadowy ele-
ments enclosed by the gloom beyond, intensifying orientalist associations.
Famously celebrating the subtleties of gloom, Junichiro Tanizaki’s evoca
tive In Praise of Shadows offers a powerful counteraesthetic to the growing
spread of illuminated brightness across Japan. Tanizaki conceives illumi-
nation as a Western import that was diminishing the subtleties of Japa-
nese sensibilities, overwhelming traditional aesthetics of place, person,
and temporality. He provides an exquisite depiction of the appearance of
Nocturnes 177
Japanese lacquerware in a darkened room where its “florid patterns recede

into the darkness, conjuring an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery,
of overtones but partly suggested,” as the sheen of the lacquer “reflects the
wavering candlelight, announcing the draughts that found their way into
the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie.” In the evening, he con-
tinues, “the thin impalpable, faltering light, picked up as though little rivers
were running through the room, collecting little pools here and there, lac-
quers a pattern on the surface of the night itself.” He further admires the
effects of candlelight in big darkened rooms, and the dark depths of alcoves
and recesses, so that the beauty of a Japanese room, he asserts, “depends
upon a variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows,” in
contradistinction to the overornamentation and garish lighting of Western
interior decor (Tanizaki 2001, 24–29).
Blackout
The section above captures the diverse pleasures associated with darkness
and the different aesthetics, desires, and imaginaries that it provokes. I have
sought to emphasize the continuities of these pleasures as well as the his-
torical contexts within which they have emerged. These positive meanings
and experiences supplement the negative qualities attributed to gloom and
draw out its profound ambiguity. While darkness in these cases is designed
or pursued, potential social and aesthetic pleasures and perils are not nec-
essarily planned but may be experienced when we are suddenly plunged
into darkness. The shifting affective, sensual, and social experience of dark-
ness, its rich ambiguities, and the ways in which responses to it are invari-
ably contextual are exemplified during urban blackouts. As David Nye
(2010, 14) suggests, until recent times, “darkness and light alternated in a
rhythm that varied with the seasons, and that imposed a structure and lim-
its on existence,” a repetitive pattern imposed on households, public spaces,
and workplaces that created habitual expectations that when darkness fell,
certain activities would cease and others begin. The establishment of elec-
tric illumination has initiated new habitual understandings about what
can be practiced, perceived, and felt across the diurnal cycle, contemporary
rhythms that blackouts disrupt.
Although superseded by the development of military technologies able
to perceive the city after dark, blackouts became familiar during the first
half of the twentieth century during wartime, providing a strategic invisi
bility by erasing the electrified landscape, redefining urban space by “hid-
ing landmarks and disrupting familiar visual patterns” (40). Throughout
178 Nocturnes
World War II in London, the absence of light during nightly blackouts

was synonymous with long-lasting wartime deprivation and abnormal-
ity, and the celebrations marking the war’s end, significantly including the
floodlighting of nationally iconic buildings, symbolically commemorated
national survival and stoicism. These illuminations were euphorically
received by the emotive VE Day crowds (Sumartojo 2014). Yet the blackout
had become a way of life for many inhabitants, and while it offered oppor-
tunities for thieves and looters, it was also integral to a collective intimacy.
Consequently, Nye reports, many “felt exposed in a room without blackout
curtains drawn” (2010, 57).
As Nye remarks, the interlinked electric grid is a major sociotechnical
achievement, yet its very complexity increases the risk of a failure across
the system, as unexpected events and mistakes can have extensive conse-
quences: “Apparently insignificant flaws and inconsistencies accumulate
until an unforeseeable combination of circumstances can trigger a failure”
(32). Accordingly, extensive urban blackouts caused by technical failings
and unforeseen climatic and environmental conditions have become fre-
quent (Bennett 2005). On these occasions, Nye (2010, 33) claims, “the
social construction of reality breaks down too,” promoting improvisation
in the use of public space as well as the reordering of rhythmic and tem-
poral urban experience. Yet responses to successive blackouts in New York
City have been influenced by the fears, desires, constraints, and opportuni-
ties that circulate during the times at which they occur.
During the 1965 blackout in New York City, large numbers of residents
and workers poured onto the street, and convivial conversation replaced
instrumental exchange and suspicion, as the flow of consumption and pro-
duction was disrupted. Social barriers dissolved and inhibitions weakened
under the shared conditions of darkness, as an awareness of social interde-
pendence dawned. Similar conditions of conviviality are recalled by many
Britons, who nostalgically refer to the rekindling of the bonds between
family and friends. Huddled round the glow of candlelight during the
government-enforced blackouts of the 1970s, imposed in response to the
reduced supply of coal during an extensive miners’ strike, Britons played
games, conversed, and shared memories. This changed context produced
a liminal state in which the usual conditions and codes were suspended,
places were subject to different uses, and people entered what Nye describes
as “a state of suspended animation, which sharpens their perceptions of
their immediate environment . . . the city is quieter and sounds unfamiliar”
(83). On this occasion, darkness provoked a festive mood of excitement.
Nocturnes 179
This celebratory mood wholly contrasted with the blackout of 1977.

As New York City slumped under conditions of inflation, unemployment,
social conflicts compounded by overzealous policing, and widespread mis-
trust between inhabitants, the blackout became emblematic of social and
economic discord. And this was further symbolized by the rioters, looters,
and arsonists who capitalized on the conditions afforded by darkness, con-
firming widespread understanding that the blackout signaled social break-
down and a potentially dystopian future, “a harbinger of terror, crime and
chaos” (203). The persistent association of darkness with danger and inse-
curity surges at particular times, as these fearful responses to the 1977
blackout exemplify. However, as Jelle Brands and Tim Schwanen (2014)
assert, feelings and assessments of nighttime safety are complex, adaptive,
and situational. More recently, blackouts have provoked imaginaries stoked
by fears of terrorist threat. The 2003 New York City blackout once more
devolved into conviviality and carnival once fears about potential terror-
ist causes had been assuaged. Chris Yuill (2004) identified “a heightened
sense of being” and the surfacing of calm, generosity and friendliness as
part of a “collective effervescence” that responds to the special conditions
of darkness. Nye (2010, 229) details how “a symphony of insect sounds
was suddenly audible,” with the unfamiliar sounds of crickets and cicadas
highlighting how sensual apprehension may be altered in pervasive dark-
ness. Visually, too, Jane Brox (2010, 243) observes how the New York envi-
ronment was reenchanted, as “skyscrapers take on a geological sheen and
the stars resemble those of ancient times.”
The examples of blackouts highlight how darkness is not essentially
neutral, positive, or negative; its power depends on the temporal and spa-
tial contexts in which it is experienced. It is evident that its aesthetic, sen-
sory, affective, social, and political potentialities can enable a diverse range
of identities and activities. Darkness facilitates thrilling embodied experi-
ences, provokes imaginations, arouses gothic fantasies, encourages med-
itative and religious experiences, inspires artistic expressions, provides
forms of refuge, and fosters modes of social engagement. It may also be
productive of danger, fear, oppression, and exclusion, and signify abjection
and backwardness.
The Yearning for Darkness

In recent years, the dearth of darkness—and the perceived overillumina-
tion of space—has inspired a search for gloom. Such reattachments have
inspired a revaluing of the qualities of darkness. Religious emphases on
180 Nocturnes
devilry and sin, Enlightenment assumptions about ignorance and primi-

tiveness, and pragmatic assertions about the dangers posed by gloom are
being challenged and supplanted by associations that are more positive.
Concerns about the disappearance of darkness are not new, and as
emphasized above, numerous groups have resisted nocturnalization,
including lantern smashers, assorted political activists, criminals, bohemi-
ans, Christian ascetics, and various mystics and New Agers. The advent of
pervasive illumination and the aesthetic transformation this has wrought
have also concerned medics and psychologists, as Ernest Freeberg exem-
plifies, discussing how the early American psychologist G. Stanley Hall
worried about the demise of experiencing twilight in an age of electricity.
He submitted that with their “rich colours and long shadows, the hours
of dusk nurtured something poetic and spiritual in the human psyche, a
contemplative mode of existence that looked beyond the material world
exposed by the strong light of day” (quoted in Freeberg 2013, 294).
At present, because of extensive illumination, the loss of darkness is
increasingly lamented. Attlee (2011, 3, 9) considers that globally, only
“the great deserts and oceans offer large areas of darkness,” with most of
us “condemned to simmer in our own electric bouillabaisse.” According to
Nye (2010, 9), opportunities to perceive the night sky and see in the dark
are curtailed, since most people “know only an artificial darkness that is
fogged with electric light,” with the sky “a smudged and meaningless back-
ground.” While the massive expenditure of energy deployed to keep cities
illuminated throughout the night provides one point of contention, the
emergent dissatisfaction with overillumination extends to wider concerns
about its impact on nonhumans. The rhythms of bird and insect migration
are disturbed, fireflies cannot transmit their signals, and though moths are
drawn to light, excessive illumination banishes them to darker realms. As
I write, the state of New York is planning to switch off nonessential lights
in state-run buildings during peak migration seasons to assist the naviga-
tion of birds that become disoriented by electric lights, causing “fatal light
attraction,” whereby they crash into buildings, dying in the millions each
year. Using moonlight for orientation, migrating sea turtles and beetles are
similarly confused. The progress of salamanders toward ponds in order to
mate is unsettled, and the milk production of cows is interrupted (Rich and
Longcore 2006).
A key agent in the gradual process through which darkness has been
revalued has been the International Dark Sky Association, an organization
with a global reach in campaigning against the spread of light pollution and
Nocturnes 181
for a reduction in the wasteful use of lighting, and above all, in promoting
the incidence of star-filled skies untainted by skyglow. An expanding num-
ber of designated places diverge between International Dark Sky Communi-
ties, Parks, and Reserves. There are currently ten communities, eight in the
United States, that implement stringent lighting codes, deliver educational
programs, and develop citizen support for dark skies. Twenty-two dark sky
parks, defined as “a park or other public land possessing exceptional starry
skies and natural nocturnal habitat where light pollution is mitigated and
natural darkness is valuable as an important educational, cultural, scenic,
and natural resource,” are mainly found in the United States, with five in
Europe. In the next chapter, I investigate the sensory, social, and aesthetic
experience of walking through one of these parks at night. With a more
global reach, the nine dark sky reserves are more extensive areas that pos-
sess what is defined as “exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights”
as well as a nocturnal environment “specifically protected for its scientific,
natural, educational, cultural, heritage and/or public enjoyment.” They con-
sist of a core area as well as a peripheral area that supports dark sky values
(International Dark Sky Association n.d.).
Diverse impulses and desires are converging to assert the value of the
nocturnal sky, including the aforementioned concern to attract celestial
tourists (Weaver 2011). Terrel Gallaway (2015, 280) summarizes the
diverse values of the night sky as a “source of aesthetic, scientific and spiri-
tual inspiration . . . a natural resource, a scenic asset and part of human-
ity’s cultural heritage.” It also signifies more ecologically sustainable envi-
ronments (Sutton and Elvidge 2015). Josianne Meier (2015) shows how
a coalition of interests has aligned in the campaign to designate dark sky
parks in Canada, the United States, and Germany, where groups of astrono
mers, environmentalists, and heritage preservationists articulate diver-
gent priorities and values but are in harmonious agreement about the sig-
nificance of darkness and the desirability of designation. Oliver Dunnett
(2014, 2) adopts a different perspective in examining the ideologies that
prevail among proponents of the British dark sky movement. The astrono-
mers in the vanguard of the movement suggest that access to the celestial
vistas should be a right, articulating an idealized “astronomical sublime,”
transcendent in its enormous scale and pushing at the boundaries of com-
prehending humanity’s location in a vast cosmos. Yet he also contends that
light pollution is spatially conceived—“light that ‘belongs’ in one place is
seen . . . as ‘out of place.’ ” Dunnett contends that such an outlook pro-
duces a distinctly moral geography in which the long-standing opposition
182 Nocturnes
between an “artificial” and malign city, and a “natural,” “traditional” rural

is amplified. The city, it is inferred, spawns “unnatural” effects and is the
locus of pollution, reinforcing conservative national landscape ideolo-
gies in which “the rural as the English national heartland” is “infected” by
urban illumination (10). Previously dominant ideas that articulated dis-
tinctions between light and dark are inverted by these equally binary oppo-
sitions, with a sublime rural darkness standing in opposition to the “uncivi-
lized,” excessive illumination of the city. Such claims also extend to notions
that the city, too, should possess skies full of stars, signifying a more sus-
tainable, aesthetic relationship to “nature.” Such ideals are manifest dur-
ing the annual Earth Hour, an event devised to draw attention to global
warming, during which all “nonessential” lights, including the striking
illuminations installed at iconic urban spaces, are turned off for one hour,
providing a brief sense of how the city might appear if electric lighting was
not so pervasive. Evidently, new ethics and aesthetics are emerging to chal-
lenge excessive illumination and celebrate darkness. However, rather than
reinforce dualistic conceptions of light and dark, it is more profitable to
reconsider the vexed relationship between them.
Reconfiguring the Relationship between Light and Dark

Darkness is suffused with numerous understandings that contest its value
and is a condition under which very diverse practices take place. To essen-
tialize darkness as a positive or negative condition is wholly inapposite, for
it is inextricable from the cultural, geographical, and historical contexts
within which these uses and meanings play out. Crucially, darkness is also
conditioned by its fluid relationship with light, whether natural or artifi-
cial. As Nina Morris insists, the efficacy of both light and dark cannot lie
in the triumph of light over dark but in the instability between them, in
the ways in which they are both present in each other and condition the
reception of each other. Because “perception shuttles between extremes of
light and dark,” she argues, darkness is “situated, partial and relational”
(Morris 2011, 316). For instance, the glamour of the bright lights of the
big city depends on the dark amid which they shine, and on the contrast-
ingly darker realms outside urban space. As Teresa Alves (2007, 1254)
asserts, darkness “reaffirms the symbolic power underlying the use of
light,” and accordingly, “light only puts on a show if it breaks out of dark-
ness”; thus “the contrast between light and shadow needs to be redressed.”
As light designers know well, illumination is most alluring and effective
when placed against a dark background. For example, those illuminations
Nocturnes 183
at Blackpool that have the dark sea as their backdrop are more potent than
those ensnared within the shine of the numerous forms of lighting on the
other side of the road.
Ben Gallan and Chris Gibson (2011) critique the still-prevalent dual-
isms between dark and light, binary conceptions that suggest absolute
opposition, diminish the diversity of each condition, and overlook how
they interpenetrate each other. Moreover, they argue, the peddling of nor-
mative dualisms can facilitate authoritarian practices of control through
establishing curfews, intensifying surveillance, and promoting particular
religious, commercial, and moral values. Such essentialisms are further
undermined by the actual cultural diversity in practicing and understand-
ing day and night, where both intersect with such a multiplicity of other
circadian, biological, climatic, and social rhythms (including heteroge-
neous sleep rhythms), as well as those of longer duration, that they lose
distinction (Gallan 2014). Moreover, divergent local and national rhythms
that characterize very different engagements with day and night still vary
enormously (Edensor 2006, 2010). For instance, many inhabitants of
Mediterranean and North African cities flood the streets after nightfall,
enjoying strolling, dining, and drinking in crepuscular conditions, per-
haps after taking a siesta during the hottest and brightest time of the day,
whereas northern Europeans are less likely to swarm onto the streets in the
evening or sleep during the early afternoon.
Moreover, as discussed above, darkness and illumination are loaded
with contested values. What may be a quiet, affective site of gloom for
some may be a realm of terror and suspicion for others; what city planners
and shopkeepers might experience as a brightly illuminated scene promot-
ing commerce and conviviality may be conceived by marginal groups as a
harsh realm of surveillance and exclusion; an apparent scene of safety and
cheeriness might for astronomers testify to the dilution or disappearance
of the nocturnal sky.
The miscellaneous gloomy settings I have discussed indicate the sheer
diversity of darkness, engendering an appreciation of the subtle varieties in
the mix of dark and light found during twilight, crepuscular hours, moon-
lit nights, and the middle of the night, and within interiors that range from
shadowy to pitch black. A recognition of this infinitely varied intermin-
gling of darkness and light can perhaps instigate an appreciation of the
qualities of gloom that were appreciated by those who dwelt in a time of
sparse illumination, with their knowledge of stars and moon. For instance,
the three stages of twilight—civil, nautical, and astronomical—occur in
184 Nocturnes
turn during both morning and evening, but currently these are terms that
have largely disappeared.
The geographical diversity of darkness becomes apparent for those
habituated to the extensive urban illumination of western Europe when
they travel to cities in which there is a different mix of illumination, dark-
ness, and shadow. In many areas of urban India after sundown, illumi-
nation is far less bright than in most European cities, yet the streets are
full of people, undeterred by this gloomier environment. In such unfamil-
iar settings, intensified awareness of sensory experience emerges. Sound
takes on different qualities of timbre, resonance, and sharpness, with the
clamor of chatter, recorded music, and the cries of traders punctuating the
gloom, as do powerful, unaccustomed smells such as rotting vegetables,
sewage, incense, and cooking. Moreover, while it may seem that the abil-
ity to walk seamlessly through brightly illuminated streets is an indisput-
able blessing, the need to pick a path carefully through the relative gloom
might alternatively be conceived as enlivening the body, sharpening the
senses and making one aware of others, and soliciting a heightened, tactile
sense of mobility. These sensual and affective affordances remind us that
the normative glare of Western streets is historically contextual and far
from universal. Moreover, the different levels of light and dark, the non-
visual sensations, and the distinctive mix of social activities mean that
in this gloomier setting, the atmosphere waxes and wanes with different
intensities, contrasting with the more ordered ambiences of more brightly
lit realms. The atmospheric and sensual potency of light under conditions
in which it is accompanied by contiguous dimness resonates with Joachim
Schlör’s (1998, 63) depiction of the nineteenth-century Parisian boule
vard as a channel of self-contained space, separated “like an island of light
against the surrounding darkness.” Persistent, excessive illumination loses
its power if there is no darkness from which it can be distinguished. To con-
clude, I draw on three very different examples in which an imaginative,
engaged, and creative use of light in the midst of gloom is produced, in
which the potency of illumination is charged by its scarcity and darkness
is welcomed.
First, I discuss the campaign to advocate “dark design,” an approach
that foregrounds the multiple ways in which darkness, as well as light,
might be deployed in the design of interior and exterior spaces. This objec-
tive has been recently taken up by a group of some four hundred light
designers who call for the more sustained deployment of what they term
the “Dark Art.” Reclaiming gloom as a positive quality, they declare, “Let
Nocturnes 185
there be darkness.” They critique what they regard as overestimations

among designers and engineers of quantitative measurements that deline
ate the “perceived adequacy of Illumination” in spaces and argue for a
reduction in visual information overload. Influenced by architects such as
Louis Kahn, Juhu Pallasmaa, and Tadao Ando, they promote the aesthetic
qualities of depth, mystery, introspection, imagination, chiaroscuro, varia-
tion, adaptability, theatricality, and atmosphere (Lowe and Raphael 2011;
Lowe et al. 2013). In 2014 Subluminal, an event devised by a group of light
designers in Manchester’s Victorian, neo-Gothic John Rylands Library, was
staged to bring out these potentialities. Their aim: to transform the usual
sensory apprehension of the building. Visitors made their way through the
library’s interior, where various light effects highlighted architectural fea-
tures, sculptures, artifacts, stairways, and passages. At certain points, the
gloom inside contrasted with the streetlights outside that shone through
the ornamental windows. Attention was directed to shadowy entrances,
dim areas of the ornate ceiling, and opaque niches. The illuminated fea-
tures added to a space of rich contrasts in which previously overlooked
details were complemented by mysterious, obscure realms.
Second, I focus on a different way to design with darkness, that used by
the Canadian off-gridders investigated by Phillip Vannini and Jonathan
Taggart, who adopt sustainable and ecocentric space-making practices
and domestic routines informed by values that explicitly articulate a sub-
tle engagement with light and darkness. These off-gridders negotiate with
darkness in a way that those connected to the grid need never consider.
On dull days, the batteries they use to collect the power provided by photo
voltaic panels will generate only a modicum of electricity that must be
rationed to service the most pressing needs of the household. These homes
“function in greater synchrony with the textures of darkness,” with inhabi
tants adapting routines and technologies in accordance with the shifting
availability of light that depends on season and weather (Vannini and Tag-
gart 2015, 3). Thus off-gridders must plan ahead, taking “darkness into
account as both a continuous and repetitive event as well as an indefi-
nite and less foreseeable occurrence” (9), an ongoing preparedness that
ensures that at least some light is available, for they do not wish to dwell
in medieval levels of darkness. Yet an appreciation of darkness accords
with the slow, everyday rhythms that synchronize with the varying sup-
ply of sunlight and gloom. For those connected to the grid, such lighting
practices might seem inconvenient and tiresome. Yet according to Vannini
and Taggart (2013), for off-gridders “visual comfort” is reconfigured “by
186 Nocturnes
taking delight in one’s capacity to affect one’s immediate environment by

way of active participation . . . in one’s relative independence from others,
and in one’s capacity to need and want less.” Here darkness is conceived as
a positive condition, lived with and adapted to, perhaps signaling a future
in which many more citizens will more actively respond to dark and light,
conceive electric illumination as variable, and regard lower levels of light
with familiarity.
Finally, I look at the how the creative interplay between light and dark
is integral to the work of the Scottish arts group NVA, whose members are
adept at staging large-scale, immersive events in nocturnal landscapes that
challenge and augment visitors’ perceptions. Nina Morris describes NVA’s
2005 event, The Storr: Unfolding Landscape, organized across a spectacu-
lar mountainside on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The work required visitors
to move up and across the hillside after dark with minimum illumination,
confronting a series of happenings and installations that aimed to deepen
their understanding of the landscape. Participants walked through woods
and rugged slopes in varying weather conditions, witnessed pale projec-
tions of moving figures, heard recorded sounds, poetry, and music, and at
the climax of the uphill section, confronted an array of illuminated rocky
ridges. Such experiences accentuated certain sensory attunements and
regularly shifted attention from absorption in what was nearby to looking
outward or becoming immersed in sound. Morris (2011, 335) considers
that the event shows the dark to be a richly “textured realm of sensory per-
ception” that reconfigures relationships to the self, to others, and to space.
NVA subsequently produced Speed of Light, an event involving runners
and walkers that spread across Arthur’s Seat and Holyrood Park, the extinct
volcanic landscape that dominates the eastern flanks of Edinburgh, and
took place on each of nineteen nights in August 2012 as part of the city’s
International Festival (Edensor and Lorimer 2015). The event was shaped
by the ways in which participants experienced darkness and light and by
the moving traces of light that they produced. Two groups of some 150
volunteer runners, clad in light suits, enacted changing choreographies in
distinct areas of the park, while five groups of fifty walkers equipped with a
staff that emitted a soft glow departed from the base camp at fifteen-minute
intervals to follow a two-mile route. The evenly spaced runners produced
a medley of visual effects as they jogged across dark hillsides and plateaus,
forming shapes, clusters, or linear strings, animating the landscape and
charting its contours and undulations. From a distance, they conjured up
allusions to fireflies, fireworks, or participants in occult rituals. The walk-
Nocturnes 187
ers also etched temporary designs across space, their staffs merging into a
glowing, white line of moving light, their bodies invisible, summoning up
resonances with medieval pilgrims or marching warriors. The efficacy of
the event was undergirded by the particular darkness of much of the park,
with valleys and hillsides that shut out urban glow and enabled the vibrant
formations of moving light to stand out. For the walkers, this gloom was
also dramatically contrasted with the glittering city that girdled the park,
visible when they reached the higher slopes. The interplay of light and
darkness in an unusual urban expanse of blackness generated an intense
engagement with place. In the next chapter I discuss the experience of run-
ning and walking in the dark during this event in greater detail.
These events echo the touristic son et lumière shows, typically presented
in ruins, stately homes, castles, cathedrals, and other places of historical
significance, but now somewhat outdated. Initiated in the 1950s at the
Château de Chambord on the Cosson River, France, these stagings have
taken place at Egypt’s Great Pyramids, Rome’s Forum, the Parthenon in
Athens, Indian forts and palaces, and numerous other iconic sites. Layers
of lighting pick out particular buildings and architectural features across
expansive landscapes, with music and narration providing further dra-
matic elements. Larger-scale art events such as Speed of Light deploy light
and darkness to theatricalize landscapes in new ways.
Conclusion
The evolving historical relationship of light to dark has frequently been
teleologically conceived as an inevitable process of technological advance-
ment and social and moral improvement, perhaps as part of the “civilizing
process” (Elias 1982). In this chapter, I have unsettled such accounts by
citing historical and contemporary examples. I have emphasized that the
experience and practice of darkness have always been uneven, contested,
and ambiguous. Yet it is apparent that in recent times, darkness is being
sought with renewed vigor, its multiple pleasures increasingly recognized,
revalued, and celebrated (Bogard 2008). The examples discussed above
highlight how the relationship of light and dark is being reconfigured in
ways that do not diminish darkness as a subordinate, inferior condition.
Chapter 8 The Reenchantment of Darkness:
The Pleasures of Noir
I n t h e p r e v i o u s c h a p t e r , I focused on the numerous values that

have circulated around darkness, showing how negative conceptions that
emerge out of religious and modernist thought have always been accom-
panied by positive understandings about the promises that darkness offers.
These different ideas have informed a host of practices through which dark-
ness offers pleasure and transgression, mystic and religious expectation,
nocturnal sublimity, aesthetic delight, sensory immersion, social intimacy,
and political opposition. Alternatively, darkness provokes fear at perilous
conditions, supernatural forces, immorality, and malign human intent. Yet
as I also emphasized, for many, the experience of darkness is now wholly
unfamiliar because of the expansive colonization of the night by illumi-
nation, provoking new desires for dark encounters. I concluded by look-
ing at three examples of alternative practice that positively reconfigure the
relationship between light and dark.
In this chapter, to further investigate the diverse contexts in which dark
space is encountered, to gain a more substantive understanding of what
it enables and delimits under particular conditions, and to explore why it
is increasingly being sought, I provide accounts of different sites of dark-
ness. The first section elaborates on a walk-through in a dark sky park. This
complements the discussion in chapter 1 about perceiving landscape with
light and addresses the dearth of nocturnal accounts of landscape. This is
followed by a consideration of how dark landscapes have been experienced
via other mobile technologies, namely, by running, cycling, train, and car.
I then investigate sites of total darkness, looking at a tourist attraction in
which a simulated experience of New York is produced, a dark dining expe-
rience, a concert staged in the dark, and an artwork that relies on how the
senses adapt to gloom.
189
190 The Reenchantment of Darkness
Encountering Gloomy Landscape: Galloway Dark Sky Park

To explore how landscape might be perceived under nocturnal conditions
in the absence of artificial light, I focus on a visit to Glen Trool in the UK’s
first dark sky park, the three-hundred-square-mile Galloway forest, con-
taining the darkest skies in Europe, which rates a three (out of nine) on the
Bortle scale (which measures night sky darkness based on the observability
of astronomical objects). The park, awarded dark sky status by the Interna-
tional Dark Sky Association in 2009, lies in southwest Scotland. With few
human inhabitants, it is characterized by swathes of commercial forestry,
mountain, and moorland. To maintain gloom, measures to reduce sky-
glow, light trespass, and glare include the shading of all light installations,
lighting curfews, and strategic tree planting.
First, I consider the enaction and experience of vision under gloomy, but
not completely dark conditions, as I walked through Glen Trool, with its
river, lake, and afforested slopes. It was a clear September night with no
cloud cover and a thin crescent moon that later disappeared from the sky.
At first, given the scarcity of available visual information cast by celestial
light on the landscape’s earthly elements, vision was drawn toward the sky.
By daylight, foreground and background coexist in the field of vision, and
the eye continuously shifts between them, but under conditions of dark-
ness, like fog, we are left to “to ponder our conditional engagements with
the near and far” (Martin 2011, 455). By daylight, the depth of the land-
scape is registered by a succession of scenes that fade into the distance.
In the dark, the horizon more emphatically marks the boundary between
earth and sky, enclosing what seems to be a dark, largely undifferentiated
realm that abruptly opens onto the luminous night sky.
The night sky changes with the variable patterns of stars and the chang-
ing levels of light bestowed by the falling and rising sun, and on other eve-
nings this dynamism would be characterized by variations in cloud cover,
the shifting clarity of the atmosphere, and the phases of the moon. How-
ever, the evening of my visit to Glen Trool was ideal for stargazing. The infi-
nite, dispassionate play of innumerable stars, distant galaxies, and constel-
lations replaced the skyglow and murk that typifies many other British skies.
Though in chapter 1 I discuss how the sky is often somewhat disconnected
to conceptions of the landscape, under these conditions it thoroughly domi-
nates perception, presenting an intricate array of countless features.
Yet though the effervescent sky at first contrasted with the shadowy
land, as vision adjusted to the gloom, more aspects of the land were made
available to sight. While the cone cells in the eye function to adapt vision
The Reenchantment of Darkness 191
to normal levels of (day)light, allowing the experience of a color spectrum,

rod cells operate when there are low levels of light. The rods allow human
vision to gradually adjust to gloomier environments, usually after about
twenty minutes, making the eyes more sensitive to light, shape, and move-
ment, though impairing the ability to distinguish color.
In the glen, an evening patchwork of shades of gray gave way to a more
homogeneous, dark gathering of indistinguishable earthly elements that
contrasted with the constant play of light in the sky above. This diminu-
tion means that colors can no longer tincture surrounding space, projecting
their radiance outward. This day-night distinction is captured by John Dan-
iel’s (2008, 23) contention that daylight vision “catches on the surface of
things, gets snagged and tugged about by their multiplicity,” whereas when
looking at trees in a forest at night, the sensation is of their “commonal-
ity” and “not the names I knew them by but their essential namelessness.”
This dense intertwining of earthly matter was disrupted only when a form
suddenly became visible, usually the separate silhouette of a single pine or
oak tree against the sky. Yet after some time, my eyes adjusted to the shift-
ing availability of light, which was conditioned by the qualities of the sur-
rounding features that blocked the sky’s glow or overshadowed the path, and
the reflective qualities of particular elements. Gradually, a greater range of
features and textures became apparent. Human vision generally scans the
daylit landscape rather than focusing on specific things. Yet, in the darkness,
small patches of reflected light or subtly different shades of gray can serve to
focus vision more acutely than in the daylight with its multitude of compet-
ing sights. The eye seeks what can be perceived and then concentrates on the
elements that show up against the black backdrop.
Walking through Glen Trool, obscure glimmerings became faintly appar-
ent, including wet rock surfaces, the silvery slivers of streams, and the
smooth, white bark of silver birch trees, although darker shapes would also
suddenly loom out of the dimness. To see with the dark landscape is to fail
to perceive the complex configurations sensed with daylight and to miss
numerous features, but to focus more exclusively on fewer elements. More-
over, where gloom thickens, the body’s boundaries become indistinct, merg-
ing with the surroundings to produce an expansive impression of the space
beyond us as we become one with the darkness. Under such conditions, it is
impossible to mobilize an omniscient gaze or activate expert scrutiny.
A further dimension of vision in Glen Trool’s dark landscape was
revealed when from seemingly far away, though how far was difficult to
guess in the absence of other visual information, another visitor’s presence
was revealed by a thin flashlight. In the absence of any other artificial illu-
mination, this weak light signaled a presence far more acutely than would
have been the case by daylight, when in all likelihood the visitor would not
have been perceptible, covered by trees and absorbed in the detail of the
landscape. Yet though this person was exposed by flashlight, there could
have been others in the glen who were not using lights and were therefore
imperceptible. This draws attention to John Wylie’s (2007, 152) claim that
as seeing subjects, we are always imbued with a consciousness that we
can always be seen as part of the “landscape of visible things,” that we are
observable subjects as well as observers. Similarly, William Connolly dis-
cusses Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (2011) insistence that our ability to per-
ceive depth in the landscape is achieved through prior experience of space
from multiple perspectives, an anticipatory disposition that also conjures
up an awareness that we can also be seen from multiple perspectives—in
contemporary times, perhaps as an object of surveillance. However, these
generalizations are not pertinent in dark landscapes, where our presence
may not be perceptible at all, perhaps triggering an awareness that we can
hide or act as we wish in the absence of the constraining gaze of others,
but also provoking anxieties that should an accident befall us, nobody may
respond to our situation. Similarly, the undetectable presence of others
may be both pleasing because we are able to ignore their presence or alarm-
ing, since we are unaware of what they might be up to.
In addition to the visual experience of the vital dark world, critiques of
accounts that privilege the visual also point to the nonvisual ways in which
space is apprehended through hearing, smell, touch, and proprioception.
These senses may temporarily supplant vision as the most dominant sense
or become entangled with seeing. Indeed, more-nuanced understandings of
visual perception and the landscape have moved beyond a focus on the pas-
sive consumption of the objectified spectacle in accounting for the multi
sensual entwinement of the gaze with sound and touch (Degen, DeSilvey,
and Rose 2008). Crucially, these nonvisual senses rise to prominence when
amid dark or gloomy space, as will be apparent in the different sensory
experiences recounted throughout this chapter.
Thus in addition to reconfiguring visual experience when apprehending
dark landscapes, we draw more substantively on touch, smell, hearing, and
proprioception. A host of sensations emerge, including a heightened aware-
ness of temperature, the stillness or freshness of the air, a delicate array of
sounds, and the shifting textures underfoot, as well as a conjectural and
imaginative approach to space. This latter disposition is referred to by Rob-
ert MacFarlane (2005, 75), who claims that in the dark “one becomes more
aware of landscape as a medley of effects.” In this “mingling of geology,
memory, nature, movement,” landforms “exist as presences: inferred, less
substantial but more powerful for it.” He surmises how we might become
aware that we walk “through the depths of time as well as physical space”
(75) as human and geological history press on the walker, conjectural
tendencies to which I return. In a different vein, John Tallmadge (2008,
140–42) asserts that in daylight, the dominance of visual apprehension
means that the “ubiquity and pervasiveness of light make everything stand
out in hard-edged clarity. We can read things at a distance and make our
plans.” However, he contends that vision “allows us to know things only
by their surfaces.” Tallmadge discusses how by daylight he is able to “fix a
position, identify a person or animal moving across a slope, trace a route,”
but by night, such practices take longer, and information must be gathered
by hearing, touch, and smell, senses that require “more patience and inti-
macy than sight.” He poetically conveys how in becoming attuned to the
landscape through these other senses, the body “relaxes, opens, breathes,
extends its attention outward into the world the way a plant feels its way
into the soil with roots or into the air with leaves.”
In Glen Trool, this feeling out of space is exemplified by negotiating the
path, which meandered, descending and ascending frequently. Because it
could be visually recognized only a few feet ahead or not at all when under
shadowy trees, the anticipation of what movements to make had to occur
moment to moment. The body could not prepare for a vertiginous ascent
or descent but had to operate in the here and now, inducing a heightened
awareness of the balance and proprioceptive aptitude required. The uncer-
tainty about the way ahead also prompted an interaction with my compan-
ion through which progress was monitored along this dark route: “This bit
is steep!,” “What’s that there?,” “Careful, the path is over here,” “Look out,
there may be a drop.” At such moments, as with the partially sighted and
blind hillwalkers discussed by Hannah MacPherson (2009, 1048), “resid-
ual sight tended to be concentrated on navigation and safety. . . . walking
became a practice more analogous to an adventure sport than a contem-
plative stroll.”
As I emphasized earlier, when we enter a landscape we do not behold
a passive, inert scene but are immersed in the currents and energies of a
world-in-formation. Moreover, we are also integrally part of this landscape,
as the light or lack of it is entwined with our sensing bodies, blurring dis-
tinctions between outside and inside. The heightening of other senses in
the dark meant that disregarded vital elements in the landscape became
prominent. This was especially the case with sound. Although the envi-
ronment initially seemed rather silent, especially with the lack of wind,
the ever-changing sounds of flowing water that accompanied every step
impinged on consciousness. What sounded like a distant waterfall formed
an ever-present background noise, changing in its tones as the volume of
water seemed to alter and the sound arrived from different directions as the
walk progressed. This was augmented by the bubbling of small cataracts
and burns, which changed in intensity and pitch as they were approached
and passed, and by occasional rustles in the undergrowth or the commo-
tion created by the flight of birds from the trees in which they were roosting.
Though I have discussed how a sense of depth was visually obliterated by
the mass of darkness into which the landscape was absorbed, this depth was
restored through sound, with these different levels of distant and nearby
sounds. These sounds focused attention on the dynamism bestowed on
the landscape by water and animals, and were supplemented by the much
louder shrieks of a tawny owl that lasted for a short while before ceasing,
leaving a profound sonic vacuum. The other evident sounds were made by
our footsteps as they crunched along the gravelly path and the enuncia-
tions, breath, and movements of myself and my companion.
In the darkness, the tactile senses also sharply registered. Feet quickly
learned to identify the different textures underfoot, detecting where tree
roots burst out of the ground to make the path uneven, or slippery, muddy
sections. In addition, as the walk progressed, the shifting quality of the air
indicated the different kinds of space that were encountered: on higher
rises or in open ground, a mild breeze would assail the face, but when sur-
rounded by overhanging trees or in dells, the air seemed still and damper.
This air also conveyed intermittent smells, the pungent scents of pinesap,
fungi, and carrion that momentarily captured attention. To conclude, the
apprehension of this dark valley landscape was certainly constrained by
an inability to see much, though vision was reconfigured and adapted to
the surroundings, focusing on objects other than those available to percep-
tion in the daylight. This fostered the emergence of other sensations that
provided access to the processes that ceaselessly reconstitute the far-from-
quiescent landscape. The ever-changing breeze, the shrieking owl, the rus-
tles in the grass, the scents of decay, the constant flows of water, and the
inexorable play of the night sky brought home the landscape’s vitalism, sig-
nifying the countless energies and agencies that continuously coproduce
the emergence of the world. Becoming enchanted by the vital rhythms of

darkness does not only require an unmediated sensory engagement but
can also involve technological means, as Victoria Mason and Paul Hope
(2014) reveal in their discussion of the tracking tools deployed to study
the movements of bats at night, which dispense forms of information that
reveal the wild intensities of their swarming.
Walking and Running through the Dark Landscape

with Illumination
Speed of Light
Having focused on moving through a dark landscape in the absence of any
artificial illumination—with the exception of the distant flashlight ema-
nating from an unseen person—I now consider how the experience of
darkness is conditioned by the mobilization of distinctive forms of lighting
to facilitate movement through space. These deployments make darkness
visible, providing a point of contrast with which the blackness beyond the
light is dramatized and distinguished.
First, I refer to an event discussed in the previous chapter, Speed of Light,
staged in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park. I have mentioned the different light-
ing technologies harnessed to the moving bodies of walking and running
participants, with runners clad in light-suits and walkers equipped with a
walking staff that emitted a soft-toned luminescent glow from its base, and
have identified the illuminated effects they produced in the dark landscape.
I now focus on the sensory experience of running and moving across this
hilly terrain in the dark.
Hayden Lorimer details how running at night offers experiences that
differ from those that involve moving through a daylit landscape. In cit-
ies, especially in the dark midwinter, he explains that “the runner’s world
glows sodium orange; the signature colour of the modern, nocturnal city,”
and this light is sufficient and consistent enough to “reveal surfaces under-
foot: well-laid, dependable paving slabs; smooth tarmac or the irregulari-
ties of cobblestones; back lanes pitted with potholes and puddles.” However,
when these habits are replaced by jogging across a dark, hilly landscape
with a headlamp and light suit, rhythms, maneuvers, and modes of atten-
tion are transformed, as Lorimer details: “Feelings of vulnerability are pal-
pable, borne of not knowing with any real confidence what lies beneath
or just ahead. Long strides shorten and stiffen to smaller steps. . . . freer
movements are pitched off balance by the ever-present worry of putting a
foot wrong.” The seamless, often unreflexive process of running through

visible space is disrupted, as “feelings of fluency deteriorate into a clutter
of physical uncertainty.” The headlamp bestowed some light, forming a
well-defined tunnel of visibility, but only facilitated limited knowledge of
the surface, fostering what Lorimer refers to as “a state of hyper-vigilance,
exhibited in tiny, quick repeated head movements . . . continuous tilts,
twitches and turns (that) were a result of the ongoing exercise of moni-
toring the ground to be encountered just a few paces ahead.” This need to
continuously improvise in response to the conditions felt and seen under-
foot testifies to the greater peril induced through moving more swiftly (than
walking) through dark landscape. Yet as Lorimer emphasizes, by running
in the dark, “in these unfamiliar conditions the sense of discovery was
more intense, one where the felt-world is continually emerging into being”
(quoted in Edensor and Lorimer 2015, 9).
Walking in Speed of Light did not involve the unfolding experience of
space at so quick a rhythm, yet in addition to nonvisual sensations akin to
those experienced in Glen Trool, the peculiar deployment of light produced
an unfamiliar visual confrontation with landscape. The illuminated tube at
the base of the staff had the strange effect of lighting up boots and the sur-
faces underfoot. This personalized pool of light channeled attention toward
the ground, rather than would usually be the case in this panoramic park,
where focus would likely be directed toward the picturesque scenes in the
middle and far distance. The light induced a preoccupation with the sculp-
tural forms of rock strata, the textures of scree beds, and the forms and
qualities of vegetation. At the time of the walk, in late summer, yellow rag-
wort grows abundant in Holyrood Park, by day forming blazing patches
of vibrant color across the landscape. But at night, in the light cast by the
staff’s glowing tube, it appeared in pale gray, but with textures and shape
illuminated, standing apart from its surroundings in a way that could not
be experienced during daylight.
The mobile gaze is shaped by specific imperatives: in touristically
appraising scenery, in marking progress during a sporting race, in apply-
ing professional scrutiny (Büscher 2006), or in bird-watching (Hui 2013).
As Peter Merriman (2009, 590) advances, “pedestrians, cyclists and
motorcyclists . . . have very different embodied engagements with and expe-
riences of inhabiting the spaces of streets and roads.” Different modes of
moving through dark space use distinct technologies and provide multi-
ple ways of performing and experiencing vision. More particularly, mecha-
nized mobilities generate different encounters with darkness according to

the forms of illumination deployed, speed, and the views afforded.
Night Train
For rail passengers, travel during the dark hours offers a reconfiguring
of the landscape experienced from the train window by day. Wolfgang
Schivelbusch (1980) describes how early train travel produced the experi-
ence of hurtling through space at speeds previously unimaginable, offering
a novel, panoramic, mobile visual experience framed by the window that
utterly transformed humanity’s relationship with landscape. David Bissell
(2009) augments this account by foregrounding passengers’ visual experi-
ence according to their motivations, the regularity of the travel, and the
stages of the journey. Additional factors include the behavior and presence
of other passengers, time and season, the kind of train, interior design, and
the kinds of landscape passed. Bissell also emphasizes the multisensory
qualities of train travel and the imbrication of the visual with other senses.
Vision is conditioned by the available light. For instance, an attentive
gaze that seeks out landmarks, patterns of agriculture, and points that
waymark the journey is easily mobilized in daylight. Traveling in the dark
thwarts this scanning of the landscape’s depths and the marking of prog-
ress. Moreover, Bissell (2009, 52) notes that at night, “outside the sodi-
umscape of urban areas, the attenuation of visual phenomena framed by
the window focuses the visual gaze towards the interior of the carriage.”
Indeed, in the absence of luminous scenes outside, the reflective window
may persuade passengers to gaze inward toward the illuminated carriage
in which they travel, in which they may glaze over, read a book, or surrepti-
tiously scrutinize other passengers.
Yet Bissell also draws attention to “the otherworldly flashes, glows,
sparks and orbs that punctuate the dark of night” and “the magical green
lights of trackside signals,” identifying some of the illuminated phenom-
ena outside the train that stand out from the surrounding gloom (52–53).
Other elements of the nocturnal landscape include the orange skyglow that
heralds an approaching town, evanescent scenes of trackside night work,
and roadside advertisements. In built-up areas, streetlights, filling stations,
floodlit sports fields, shop windows, and domestic interiors with flickering
televisions may be briefly glimpsed. At night, mobile energies are promi-
nent, with ribbons of moving light formed by flowing vehicular traffic,
rhythmic traffic lights, or the urgent flashing of emergency vehicles. Rural
landscapes are contrastingly experienced as a sequence of glimpsed illumi-

nated highlights: buildings, livestock batteries, car lights bisecting the dark,
and solitary dwellings amid rural blackness, their lit windows maybe con-
juring a sense of homey warmth. Any illuminated feature close to the track
disappears in a phosphorescent blur.
Driving and Cycling at Night

While Schivelbusch describes the revelatory ways in which perception of
the landscape was enabled by early train travel, Sandy Isenstadt details the
revolution provided by the automobile from the 1910s, focusing on the
mobile perception of the road in the dark. Isenstadt (2011, 229) claims
that to “position oneself at the vertex of a cone of light and propel it across
a darkened landscape must count as one of the most startling visual expe-
riences of the twentieth century.” He evocatively describes the transfor-
mative perceptual effects of the car headlight in producing “a luminous
space unprecedented in its ubiquitous mobility” through which “drivers
and passengers found themselves at the vertex of a luminous cavity mov-
ing through a mantle of dark” (213). This initially enthralling capacity to
direct a moving vehicle transformed the mobile encounter with noctur-
nal space and introduced a new visual practice whereby the forward focus
of car drivers “repeatedly scanned a constantly shifting field of view to
classify heterogeneous luminous signals in terms of hindrance, continu
ance, or irrelevance” (214). Isenstadt further discusses how car head-
lights “rendered forms in a novel fashion,” exaggerating their shape and
throwing long shadows that extended to join the surrounding darkness.
Such objects, he continues, “bloomed gradually into nocturnal form, then
sharpened for an instant and, just as swiftly were gone” (218), especially
in the less-illuminated countryside. The beam’s span structured the experi-
ence of the road surface, which brightened as it approached.
As Monica Büscher and John Urry (2009, 102) assert, the bicycle can
also “sensuously extend human capacities into and across the world,” and
“provide various ways of framing impression.” The cyclist, too, uses illumi-
nation to guide passage through dark landscapes. Though initially “dim,
awkward to install, liable to sway greatly, and easily extinguished,” the bicy-
cle lamp has technically advanced to provide a secure, reliable device and
affords a distinctive means through which to envision dark space while
mobile (Isenstadt 2011, 213). To identify how the slower, less-insulated
practice of cycling, with its narrower beam, produces different sensations
and perceptions of the dark landscape, I draw on the experiences of Matt,
who has been cycling around rural Bedfordshire after dark for thirty years
to train for competitive races (Cook and Edensor 2014).
On most nights, the dark walls of hedgerows and trees frame much of
the route and form a boundary to the fields beyond. When the moon is not
visible and urban skyglow fades, an inky blackness descends within which
the boundaries of the body merge. The beam emitted from Matt’s headlamp
provides almost the sole source of light, cutting a moving tunnel through
the thick darkness. The more narrowly focused beam and the slower speed
at which things are perceived intensifies an appreciation of the forms of
trees, gates, and sections of hedgerow, highlighted against the darkness.
The night cyclist becomes attuned to shifting levels of light and dark
influenced by season, weather, and hour. Surroundings may be tinctured
with brightness when clouds are low and the lights cast by towns are
reflected to form an orange ceiling. James Attlee (2011, 5) discusses how
moonlight changes “colours and contours in its shape-shifting light.” In
the Bedfordshire countryside, when the moon shines brightly after rain-
fall, lanes glow silver and a pale radiance covers the landscape. Early winter
nightfall shapes the temporal experience of darkness; so does the thickness
of vegetation during the summer months. High hedges and overhanging
trees accentuate the sense of traveling through a tunnel, but this dissipates
when the landscape suddenly opens up as the road is unbounded by lofty
vegetation, revealing the radio masts and large trees that provide a sense
of orientation.
Cycling in the dark also focuses greater attention on nonvisual sensa-
tions, including the cold of the handlebars, the texture of the road, scents
that emerge from hedgerows, and the sounds of distant traffic and nearby
wildlife. Progress is interrupted when deer gather under the shelter of
trees or foxes and hares cross the road. The absence of manifold sights also
causes attention to focus on the body and its capacities, the rhythm of ped-
aling and feelings of tiredness or energy. It is also crucial to underline how
the cultural associations of darkness are also stimulated, for besides sen-
sual pleasures and discomforts, cycling through the nocturnal rural land-
scape invariably conjures up the imaginary, fantastic, and phantasmago-
rical, foregrounding how the distinction between the nonrepresentational
and the representational aspects of encountering landscape are folded
together. Darkness, as emphasized earlier, has potency in stimulating fer-
vid imaginaries about the unseen or dimly visible, calling forth a catalog of
local legends, children’s tales, myths, media representations, and memo-
ries. This is well exemplified as Matt approaches the site that local story
identifies as where a pilot lost control of his airplane and crashed into a tree
during an aeronautical display at an airshow, triggering a shudder. Matt
also experiences a frisson of fear when passing a ruined church at which
satanic rituals were supposedly enacted in the 1960s. Such embedded cul-
tural associations of the dark with the supernatural and the macabre recur
and are not easily banished from thought.
I have discussed gloomy landscapes, and how they are visually and
nonvisually apprehended, focusing on pastoral Bedfordshire, an affor-
ested Scottish glen, a mountainous urban park, and the generic space of
the road. Just as particular landscapes are shaped by and perceived with
the light that falls across them, the levels of darkness that shroud specific
landscapes condition the apprehension of nocturnal space. Seeing with the
dark landscape alters according to seasonal patterns of light and dark, the
phases of the moon and movement of stars, the play of the clouds, and
the shifting availability of vegetation cover. Geological and arboreal sil-
houettes, undulations and flat stretches, light-reflecting surfaces such as
wet rock, bodies of water and snow, and those that contrastingly absorb
light further shape the nocturnal gaze, as does the imprint of human illu-
mination in forming points of light, along with instances of natural phos-
phorescence in algal blooms and glowworms. Allied to these distinguishing
elements are nonvisual sensations such as the endless pulse of cicadas or
croaking frogs, music that wafts through the darkness, and the scent of
night blooms or smoke.
As Lloyd Jones (2006, 23) depicts in his novel Mister Pip, in the tropics
“night falls quickly, there is no lingering memory of the day just been. One
moment you can see the dogs looking skinny and mangy. In the next they
have turned into black shadows.” On the equator, darkness is unvarying,
always lasting for twelve hours. Contrastingly, in the Arctic Circle, daylight
never arrives in the depths of winter, darkness persisting for several months.
Thus far in this chapter, I have explored how darkness transforms the
apprehension and practice of landscapes, yet none of these settings is
completely dark; indeed, the experiences are shaped by the different levels
and forms of light against which darkness contrasts and which reveal cer-
tain forms and elements. Now, however, I consider spaces in which com-
plete darkness reigns, investigating the different sensory, affective, social,
and perceptual effects that are stimulated in the absence of any light. The
experience of pitch-black space is also thoroughly context specific, depend-
ing on the kinds of activities and purposes for which darkness is being
deployed. I demonstrate how complete darkness triggers a wide range of
responses from those in its midst, capturing the enduring ambivalence that
surrounds such blackness.
Walking through an Ersatz New York in Total Darkness

The first site is a former tourist attraction in New York City, Dialogue in
the Dark, in the popular complex of the South Street Seaport and one of
seventeen similar current exhibitions worldwide at the time I visited (Dia-
logue in the Dark 2012). This attraction avowedly aims to provide an
insight into how the blind and partially sighted apprehend the world, with
the franchise’s founder, Andreas Heinecke, keen to promote empathy and
communication with the blind “without hindrances of insecurity, pity or
prejudice” while encouraging visitors to abandon usual patterns of percep-
tion and sensation. In New York, Dialogue consisted of a walking journey
through five simulated Manhattan sites.
Upon entry, visitors are provided with a walking cane and seated in a
small chamber on light boxes that slowly dim so that the transition to pitch
black is not alarmingly sudden and eyes become accustomed to darkness.
Subsequently, as visitors expectantly wait, a blind or partially sighted guide
verbally greets them and provides some ground rules, intimating that the
inevitable physical contact should not be repetitively greeted with apology.
Valerie, our guide, requested that we follow the sound of her voice and use
the stick to locate ourselves. Though at first an unfamiliar maneuver, using
the cane provided a comforting, tactile sense of the path’s location and its
concrete materiality.
The first locale, “Central Park,” was replete with sounds of water, bird-
song, and peoples’ conversations. Visitors are requested to place their hands
in the “fountain” and feel the foliage and flowers. Undoubtedly, the sensa-
tions of flowing water, temperature, and texture are far more powerfully
experienced in the absence of vision. Similarly, the sounds of conversing
people conveyed a sense of happy conviviality generated by the multitude
of New Yorkers and tourists who take their pleasure in Manhattan’s vast
green swathe, focusing sensory appreciation on its nonvisual qualities. The
sense of touch predominated in the next zone, the adjoining “supermar-
ket,” where visitors handled commodities to ascertain whether they could
recognize them. With loose items of fruit and vegetables, touch proved sur-
prisingly accurate as a means of identification, with a marrow, a lemon,
and an aubergine all readily distinguishable. The subsequent experience
involved a pared-down simulation of a subway station and train, and this
was revealing of the difficulties of moving through utter darkness, here,
walking down the steps into the subway and locating the train doors. It
seems impossible that such maneuvers could be undertaken in the far more
complex space of the real subway system without sight, and the steering
presence of the guide was essential.
This difficulty in making sense of and navigating space in the absence
of vision was exacerbated when we were thrust into a simulation of Times
Square, where the smells and sounds of this frenetically busy place com-
posed an overwhelming multisensual blitz. This produced the most disori-
enting and least pleasant experience of the tour, a dense racket that con-
veyed chaos, a paralyzing soundscape that overwhelmed attempts to gain
any sense of location in the dark. However, Valerie informed us that the
blind are gradually able to distinguish between sounds, their distance, and
their provenance, though this was difficult to imagine. To end the tour, we
were ushered into an ersatz café, sitting down amid the enveloping coffee
aromas, and the lights gradually came on to reveal the guide.
Movement and orientation in this ersatz Manhattan was engendered
by the vocal and physical guidance of Valerie, highlighting the different
intimacies and forms of communication fostered in the dark. The tone
and accent of voice, its inflexions and encouragements, the gentle, tactile
chaperoning through the darkness, and the continuous physical closeness
and feel of breath and body heat generated a precious connection between
guide and visitor. This tactile and sonic intimacy, along with smells, sounds,
and proprioception, certainly emerged in the surrounding, indeterminate
blackness. Yet though the attraction endeavors to solicit sensory as well as
social empathy for the condition of blindness, as sighted people we did not
see nothing. For as Roy Sorensen (2004, 457) insists, we actually see in the
dark, but “not what we generally wish to see or in the manner we generally
wish to see.” In total darkness there may be nothing visually distinguish-
able, but we do see the enveloping blackness and we persistently strain to
see anything within it. Moreover, we are possessed of the reassurance that
we will duly enter the visible world once more.
In addition, for those who possess vision, darkness stimulates a men-
tal picture to form of the imperceptible place, exemplifying MacPherson’s
(2009, 1049) claim that “the process of seeing is dependent not only on
the physical organ of sight but also on memory and imagination.” Perhaps
without having acquired advanced meditation techniques, it is impossible
to still the imagination in dark space, fueled as it is by memories of places
and representations, and simply accept the darkness as a featureless realm.
Because I had prior experience of the two specific simulated sites conjured
up in Dialogue in the Dark, namely, Central Park and Times Square, and
also possess a catalog of memories of the three generic sites—a supermar-
ket, a subway station and train, and a coffee shop—I could draw on these
recollections in easily imagining their appearance. A sense of place was
thus conjured up by the sounds, smells, and textures and augmented by an
imaginary that drew on visual recollection. Impressionistic images of foun-
tains, supermarket aisles, and subway stations were invariably brought to
mind, not as picture-perfect scenes but as amalgams of visual and other
sensory impressions.
Eating in the Dark: Dans le Noir?

A less mobile, more confined, sensorially divergent, and socially peculiar
experience of complete darkness is offered by Dans le Noir? in London, one
of several restaurants in cities across the world that offer the experience of
dining without any light whatsoever. The restaurant advertises its attrac-
tions by preparing would-be diners for a visit: “By suppressing the domi-
nant sense of sight, you will enter a world in which one is uncertain of
surroundings and experiences” (Dans le Noir? n.d.). Upon entering Dans
le Noir?, diners arrive in a modest, illuminated bar and are provided with
a menu. Most people opt for the “surprise menu” for which no information
is provided, so that they can enjoy guessing what they are eating. After a
short time, diners are introduced to their waiter, a partially sighted or blind
employee, and placing their hands on the shoulders of the person in front,
they cautiously make their way to their table along a twisting corridor
that culminates in complete darkness. A far more detailed ethnographic
account of the range of diners’ experiences can be found elsewhere (Eden-
sor and Falconer 2015). Here I provide a brief summary of the key themes
that emerged from fifty interviews undertaken with diners after the meal.
Most diners interviewed expressed their predilection for undertaking
challenging and novel experiences, particularly with regard to dining.
While aware that they would be eating food in a completely lightless envi-
ronment, many commented that they were nonetheless startled by the
degree of darkness, testifying to the rarity of encountering total blackness.
Responses to this blackout were varied and ambivalent, many relating
that it enthralled them, with such comments as “I loved experiencing the
daily task of eating food in a whole new way,” “It was a sensory guessing
game!,” and “It was a lot of fun to have to figure out what you’re eating.”
For others, however, the experience produced anxiety and discomfort, with
responses like “I felt really small, very self-conscious and slightly afraid of
the unexpected,” “Eating food you don’t trust in the dark is just unpleas-
ant,” and “I felt lost. It was all horrible sensations.”
There was also little consensus on the effects of the darkness on the senso-
rium, though a majority found the experience stimulating. Some expressed
enthusiasm: “What an amazing experience! The dining room is pitch-black
which awakens every other sense you have.” Many referred to the amplifi-
cation of sound and tactility, commenting on how they managed to orient
themselves to the immediate surroundings of table and utensils, whereas
beyond this limited orbit, all sense of direction and detail was lacking. For
instance, as one diner admitted, “I thought I had the room figured out, and
then we walked out in a completely different direction to what I thought. . . .
Even though it was dark I thought I could have some sort of understanding
of the room!” The lack of light also prompted some diners to envisage the
unseeable room, bringing out the points raised above about how we tend to
imagine what is imperceptible. For example, one diner remarked about how
he had a sense that there was a high ceiling with “very, very high arches,
and vaults like old fashioned dungeons, but it was completely imaginary.”
Others focused on the disorienting babble of noise produced by the welter
of merging conversation, without the relief provided by visual informa-
tion, which if it had been available, would perhaps have relegated the noise
to inattention. Most striking was the sensory experience of eating in total
darkness, with most diners referring to the intensity of the food, its fla-
vors, consistencies, chewiness, smoothness, or graininess. Yet despite these
enhanced sensations, nearly all failed to recognize the foods they ate, often
provoking astonishment at their own presumed ineptitude: “I can’t believe
I didn’t recognise tastes and textures just because I couldn’t see them,” and
“Rhubarb I’ve had before, but I simply couldn’t identify it! Even with such
a distinct flavour, it’s like your usual mechanisms don’t work anymore.”
This inability, which both intrigued and exasperated diners, raises interest-
ing questions about the role of vision in taste but also points to how certain
senses are enhanced in the dark, whereas others are ineffective in discern-
ing aspects of the world, at least for those unhabituated to such conditions.
As with Dialogue in the Dark, certain circumstances are rendered unintel-
ligible in complete darkness.
Yet though the incapacity to see might instigate frustration, other expe-
riences were accentuated, most notably the tactile and verbal communi-
cation that was fostered. Dark dining kindled an amplification of social
engagement, producing an affective connection between diners and a
shared sense of adventure. This was manifest toward the wait staff, who
provided a security that diners valued, as one diner expressed: “I really

trusted and felt connected with our waitress Claire, she placed her hand
on my hand and on her shoulder, so I knew it would be fine.” The sense of
touch was also accentuated among table companions, who found it reas-
suring and intimate, as one woman discussed in expressing how it “was
really nice touching my boyfriend’s face. I wouldn’t be able to do that with
anyone else or in a more public place.” These bonds also extended to other
diners, for darkness permitted certain kinds of interaction and a deeper
association with others that would be less likely if light reigned, as one
interviewee explained: “I felt really safe and like I could have brought up
things I wouldn’t normally in a lightened room. I felt more intimate and
connected.” Others expanded on this theme, with one declaring that she
“loved the conversation with total strangers. I imagine in a lit room, in that
environment people would keep silent. Our whole table were swapping tips
and advice.” Diners suggested that a key factor here was that the inabil-
ity to assess appearance and eating habits fostered a spreading convivial-
ity through which social restraint was cast aside and judgments based on
appearance were suspended. As one diner emphasized, “All propriety and
table manners disappear!”
It is apparent from this brief survey that dining in the dark enhanced
certain sensory and social experiences while impairing others. Responses
to the event varied considerably and underline both the subjective expe-
rience of darkness and the multiple ways in which it is decoded and val-
ued. This diversity and ambivalence is further developed in the following
encounter with complete darkness.
A Concert in the Dark

Eclipse
In July 2011, as part of Manchester International Festival, a blind couple
from Mali, Amadou and Mariam, staged Eclipse, an experimental concert
performed in complete darkness. Once more, the show was devised to instill
an empathetic sense for the blind and provide a sense of how music might be
perceived in the absence of sight. A key element of today’s pop music con-
cert is the light show, devised in increasingly sophisticated ways to enhance
the experience. In Eclipse, such effects were absent, as was any sight of the
band until the culmination of the set, which lasted nearly ninety minutes.
As was the case with sound and touch in Dialogue in the Dark, and taste,
tactility, and social intimacy in Dans le Noir?, the experience of listening
to highly amplified music in the dark thoroughly intensified the concert’s
auditory qualities. Audience members were able to attend to the nuances

of the melodies and rhythms that washed over the pitch-black venue and
created a lush sonic environment, the musical sound overwhelming other
sensory experiences. This sonic absorption was augmented by the narrative
passages read out by the Malian poet Hamadoun Tandina between songs,
interludes that focused on the couple’s path to romance, marriage, parent-
hood, and fame. This story was accompanied by recorded sounds of crow-
ing cocks, chirruping crickets, chattering children, running water, and
the revving engines of cars and mopeds that evocatively conjured up lively
landscapes from Mali and Senegal. These auditory effects were further sup-
plemented by other multisensory techniques in moments where warm air
and scents of sandalwood, mosquito repellent, cloves, and jasmine wafted
through the pitch-black concert hall.
Though these sensory effects and the power of the music were capti-
vating, the absence of the audience rituals and sense of shared occasion
that shapes the usual experience of live music performance were some-
what disconcerting. The communicative efforts of the performers, the light
show, and the emotions expressed and transmitted by the gestures and
facial expressions of the crowd could not be experienced under these cir-
cumstances. In sharp contrast to the animated crowd response that typi-
fies most rock concerts, as people dance, shout out, and sing along, on this
occasion the audience was peculiarly quiet, with polite applause greeting
the end of songs. The darkness seemed to encourage this quietness, draw-
ing the crowd into a rich sound world but providing none of the familiar
visual cues for participation.
This quiescence was compounded by its contrast with the start of the
event. The excitement produced by the strangeness of what we were about
to witness intensified as people were guided by ushers to their seats in the
dark, and an air of anticipation grew, articulated by a vibrant hubbub that
saturated the hall. Yet this excitement dissipated as the sounds of music
and commentary enveloped the arena. When the concert drew to a close
with a rousing finale, the lights gradually rose to reveal a resplendent Ama-
dou and Mariam and their band onstage. Suddenly, after being deprived of
sight, immersed in their own responses to the music, the audience was cat-
alyzed by the abrupt transformation in sensory experience and affective
communication. Audience members collectively created a great surge in
noise, dancing and cheering as they became reattuned to the concert by the
visual cues offered by the animated musicians and other spectators.
In Eclipse, visual deprivation had served to affectively distance the audi-
ence from the musicians and other concertgoers, revealing the profoundly
social and communicative dimensions that generate concert atmospheres.
The pulsing rhythm urged us to dance, although fear of bumping into other
people and obstacles cultivated a cautious somatic engagement with the
music. Even so, the deployment of darkness can be construed as effective,
for at the concert’s conclusion there was plenteous recompense. During the
final “reveal,” a sensual and social connection was reengaged, offering a
satisfying emotional climax that drew its power precisely from the earlier
deprivation. Accordingly, the show further exemplifies the ambiguity of
darkness, its capacity to both heighten and restrict particular sensations,
and its propensity to foster and suffocate the emergence of atmospheres
depending on contexts.
Staging Darkness
Tino Seghal’s This Variation
Finally, I look at the use of what appears to be complete darkness as a tool
to cleverly disarm participants in an art installation / performance that
was part of Manchester’s 2013 International Festival. Tino Seghal’s This
Variation took place in a now-disused part of Piccadilly train station, the
semiderelict Mayfield Depot, which formerly stored and dispatched parcels
from within its cavernous interior and was briefly opened up as a tempo-
rary festival venue. Visitors entered the echoing building and, after cross-
ing a huge hall, were guided along a short passage to a room. Inside, all
appeared completely dark, and the room’s dimensions and planes were
impossible to judge. I imagined that it possessed areas that sloped, with per-
haps sudden drops bounded by railings. Once more, this exemplifies how in
the absence of light, the mind conjures up an impression of that which
cannot be perceived. In the blackness, chirruping noises reverberated, and
then sonorous voices accompanied them. These sounds seemed recorded,
and they animated the unseen space with a liveliness that was not ini-
tially apparent. Gradually, vision adapted to the gloom. At first, only shad-
owy forms could be ascertained, but steadily the room’s flat, square shape
became visible, refuting my imaginary construction, and then the figures
took on a more substantial form. As eyes became attuned to the darkness,
it became obvious that it was they who were responsible for the sounds. The
ever-changing soundscape shifted from a cappella singing to better-known
songs, occasionally giving way to spoken words. Subsequently, a romantic
slow song was the trigger for the dancers to gently draw close to visitors,
embracing some of them in a slow dance. After becoming accustomed to
the gloom, it was comical to watch new arrivals, edging blindly into the
room, arms outstretched. By contrast, those who had stayed for a while
became part of the event, joining in the dance, responding to those who
gently solicited them.
Initially, the experience of This Variation underlines the power of dark-
ness to disrupt, even shock a body unfamiliar with it, and to focus attention
on nonvisual sensations. Yet as we came to realize that the darkness was
not total, after fifteen to twenty minutes, as the eye’s rod cells were activated
and vision adapted to the weak light attached to the ceiling, we were able
to perceive most essential details. Seghal’s work thus plays with our abil-
ity to adjust to very—though not completely—dark conditions during the
time we spend in the room. Indeed, this is crucial to the success of the piece.
In a fully lit, visible space in which interpreters were transparently singing
and dancing, visitors would probably shrink from the scene in embarrass-
ment or watch uneasily from the sidelines. Foreknowledge of dancing and
being hugged may well induce grim anticipation of such intimate physical
contact. However, as visitors only gradually become aware what is happen-
ing in their midst, most appear to be disarmed, even charmed, by the subtle
interactions taking place.
Seghal’s works are “relational artworks,” devised to produce social
experiences and instigate sociability (Downey 2007). The crucial element
in This Variation is the initial perception of darkness, for visitors start out
alone, guessing about what is going on, and only gradually come to belong
to a community. In this sense, darkness opens up the potential for physical
and affective communication that “dismantles the traditionally passive role
of the viewer and the static condition of the artwork” (Metzger 2013, 4),
constituting a social experience forged in interaction between visitors,
interpreters, and space. In discussing plays staged in the dark, Martin Wel-
ton (2013, 5) similarly claims that the “visual experience of darkness is
one of proximity,” as a sense of distance between the observer, other peo-
ple, and space diminishes.
Conclusion
This chapter, like the previous one, has underlined the varied experiences
and complex ambiguities stimulated by encountering dark space. However,
three clear themes emerge from the engagements with the gloomy and com-
pletely dark spaces discussed above, namely, enhanced sensation, reconfig-
ured social engagement, and imaginative involvement. First, the pervasive
spread of illumination, what Welton calls a “luminous superabundance,”
has made darkness deeply unfamiliar for most people in the West (6). This
has consequently restricted opportunities to perceive space in very differ-
ent ways to that of the daylit and illuminated world, precluding the sig-
nificance of darkness as a medium in which perceptions, sensations, and
social connections can be practiced and experienced very differently. As
Juhani Pallasmaa (2005, 46) asserts, darkness can “dim the sharpness
of vision, make depth and distance ambiguous, and invite unconscious
peripheral vision and tactile fantasy.” This sensory alterity has great poten-
tial to enrich, reconfigure, and interrogate visual experience. In gloomy
landscapes, once vision becomes attuned to the dark, seeing is directed to
features that are rarely noticed. Shiny things, silhouettes, dark gatherings,
tones of gray, and the luminosity of the night sky all command attention.
Seeing with limited forms of light while mobile renders the landscape linear
and partial, highlighting the textures and forms of things close at hand, and
producing a tunnel of light through which to pass. In a dark landscape, the
impression of light while mobile is transformed, with isolated points of light
serving as orientation points, glimpses of illuminated domestic and work
scenes rendered strange, and nearby lights distorted into blurred flashes. In
totally dark space, seeing objects is impossible, a lack that prompts imagi-
nary compositions of scenes that are inaccessible to sight. The inability to
discern any spatial characteristics also offers opportunities for the suspen-
sion of visual judgment, providing welcome relief from the critical scru-
tiny of others. However, an inability to see also provokes fear, alienation,
detachment, and mistrust. It can generate a sense of detachment from
what is happening, and without sight, sound can overwhelm and confuse.
Whatever the emotive response, darkness is visually perceived, though no
detail at all can be seen amid an all-encompassing blackness.
Equally important, darkness enriches nonvisual sensation. The sounds
and smells of the landscape reinforce an understanding of its vitality. Efforts
to balance and navigate on foot produce an enhanced appreciation of the
tactile qualities specific to place and landscape. The nonvisual sensations
of cycling and running are similarly intensified in the dark, the workings
of the legs, breathing, the feel of the ground and the bike, the breeze, and
a less-insulated immersion in air, moisture, and temperature. These sensa-
tions are intensified in complete darkness, with sound particularly potent,
yet the capacities of the ear and the taste buds to accurately relay infor-
mation can be thwarted. In moving across dark space, the body “connects
and disconnects to and from the landscape although being simultaneously
entangled with it” in distinctive ways, with different points of connection
and disconnection, and different entanglements through which the senses

are continuously recalibrated (Lund 2012, 3).
The experience of these nonvisual senses provides a corrective for ocular
centrism. In discussing tourism, Caroline Scarles (2009, 467) asserts that
“tourists encounter the world multisensually and multidimensionally,”
not merely through the “tourist gaze.” This is rendered salient in consid-
ering that currently, leisure practices seek out sensual alterity beyond the
visual, and this demand is accommodated by the commodification of an
increasing number of areas, as the dark attractions explored here testify.
Yet though such experiences may be commodified, this does not necessar-
ily devalue them, for sensing the world though tactility, sound, smell, and
taste undercuts normative modes of apprehension, potentially revealing
the situated, habitual ways and cultural values through which we make
sense of things. In the dark, we sense otherwise, underlining Jim Drob-
nick’s (2005, 273) suggestion that “the poetry of existence” is enhanced
by “cultivating diverse sensory experiences and a heightened sensitivity
towards the immediate physicality of the world.”
Second, in addition to these sensory alterities, darkness, especially
total darkness, promotes different forms of social engagement. Most din-
ers interviewed at Dans le Noir? commented on how intimacy with wait-
ers, other diners, and friends and relatives was deepened in the absence
of sight, augmented by touch and the sonic qualities of voices. I have
shown how reliance on guides and waiters engenders a sense of connec-
tion, fostering gratitude for those who make journeying and residing in
darkness more comfortable. In This Variation, gradual visual adjustment to
what at first appeared to be total darkness was used as a way to produce a
social engagement that minimized social inhibitions. These nonjudgmen-
tal, intimate connections reveal how vision can serve to distance people
and objects from the self. Seeing the other makes explicit our separation
from persons or things, yet this is denied in the dark where, as Rob Shaw
(2014, 6) submits, “night penetrates into our sense of self—it erodes the
body and its independence from other objects.” Without sight, such distinc-
tions are not so easily made, and accordingly, different connections with
otherness are facilitated. As the material form and shape of the world dis-
solves, meaning comes to reside in other sense-making processes, denying
impulses to distinguish the other from the self through judgments and clas-
sifications facilitated by vision. There is little evidence for the dissimilarity
of the other, producing an ambiguous situation in which, as Tom Sparrow
(2013, 6) contends, that “who or what others may be becomes less fact
than possibility.”
Third and finally, the capacities of darkness to stimulate the imagina-
tion are particularly compelling. Anna Steidle and Lioba Werth (2013, 76)
are explicit about how darkness decreases feelings of self-consciousness
and freedom from scrutiny. A darkened room, they claim, “elicits a feel-
ing of freedom, self-determination and reduced inhibition . . . and pro-
motes a risky, explorative, and less vigilant task processing style,” as bod-
ies attune to what seems to be a more informal setting. It is certainly the
case that darkness stimulates terror, with all manner of imagined ghostly
and sinister creatures provoked by its obscurity, and without visual con-
tact with the world, a slide toward introspective solitude can emerge. Yet
as I have shown, the meditative potential of darkness is also potent, as
mindfulness is enabled precisely through this inward focus. Moreover, as
is abundantly clear, darkness is loaded with a host of cultural representa-
tions and understandings, and these can intrude on the experience of dark
space, as exemplified by the fears that spring to mind as Matt cycles past a
church associated with creepy goings-on. Yet beyond these reference points
and allusions, darkness can also inculcate a sense of mystery, profundity,
and speculation, in which the process of trying to see and feel your way
through space gives rise to unfamiliar, unbidden thoughts and fantasies.
Conclusion The Novelty of Light and the
Value of Darkness
I n t h i s b o o k , I have highlighted how daylight, illumination, and dark-

ness are conditions in which a diverse range of practices takes place and
around which an array of often contesting meanings circulate. As inte-
gral elements in human understanding, sensing, perception, and practice
of the world, no essential qualities can be attributed to light and dark, and
this is underlined by the fluid, dynamic geographical and temporal contexts
within which they are experienced according to widely diverging cultural
norms. I have discussed the varied understandings of daylight as it shapes
the experience of place and landscape. I have focused on the baleful ef-
fects of overillumination and poor design and countered these negative as-
pects by focusing on creative efforts to produce more sustainable, aesthetic
forms of lighting. I have looked at how power deploys illumination in di-
verse ways and how such measures are resisted. I have also looked at the
affective and emotional qualities that foreground how light and dark are
always more than representational in their effects. Finally, I have explored
the divergent ways in which darkness has been construed and practiced,
arguing that widespread fear and vilification, leading to its gradual disap-
pearance in many settings, has led to a renewed quest for experiences of
darkness and a recalibration of the relationship between light and dark.
To emphasize, daylight, darkness, and illumination are invariably suf-
fused with cultural values and myriad practices that solicit divergent sen-
sory, affective, and emotional responses. As I have inferred throughout,
these cultural meanings, values, and practices are being questioned in
multiple ways, and settled understandings of light and dark are evaporat-
ing. New technologies, desires, artistic approaches, powers, and commer-
cial opportunities are dynamically emerging to undercut prior certainties.
These dramatic developments mean that the future ways in which light and
dark are practiced, understood, and sensed can only be imagined. In this
213
214 Conclusion
brief conclusion, I identify three key processes through which we might

consider these realignments, and discuss how they might eventuate in pro-
gressive or dystopian outcomes.
Light and Dark as Signifiers of Inequality

One particular chapter of this book discusses how illumination is deployed
as an expression of power and highlights the inequalities that may be
inscribed on space by the uneven distribution of light. However, this theme
also resonates through other discussions. Power is manifest by illumina-
tion in numerous ways. I have explored how media screens, illuminated
corporate logos, and brightly lit advertisements dominate urban commer-
cial space, imprinting certain meanings and identities on the black canvas
of the night. Similarly, state power can be dramatically demonstrated by the
illumination of selective symbolic historic buildings, state institutions, and
monuments. These techniques of highlighting and foregrounding specific
elements are always liable to distort the urban nightscape more dramati-
cally than in the day, when the privileged signs and sites of the powerful
must compete with visual multiplicity. There is thus every reason to remain
vigilant toward those who would dominate the appearance of the noctur-
nal city, especially considering the expanding technological means that are
available to produce bigger, brighter, more compelling forms of lighting.
Science fiction movies such as Blade Runner prefigure the kinds of distorted
nightscapes that may eventuate if corporate power grows unchecked.
Other signifiers of power are constituted by the military technologies
deployed by superior forces to intimidate, terrify, and disorient opponents
on the battlefield. These psychological and sensory assaults with light echo
the smaller-scale use of searchlights to follow criminal suspects and daz-
zling illumination to unhinge prisoners under interrogation. These opera-
tions are characterized by huge technological inequalities that enable some
to see in the dark through heat-and motion-detecting equipment while
others can see nothing. As with many technologies, military science serves
as a vanguard in developing such light applications, and there are always
dangers that such threatening techniques can extend into civilian space,
through intensified surveillance, for instance. Jules Bourdais’s unrealized
designs for a Tour Soleil testifies to the desires of the powerful to be all see-
ing, deploying lighting to continually scrutinize citizens.
I have also focused on how illumination is a realm of contestation in
which those who claim to possess greater capacity for aesthetic discrimina-
tion, more refined judgment, and superior taste denounce what they iden-
Conclusion 215
tify as lighting of poor aesthetic quality. Some of these people seek status as
cultural intermediaries, able to pronounce on the quality of art and urban
design. Their widely broadcast disdain for particular forms of vernacular
and traditional lighting are aligned with assumptions about the assumed
failings of those who create and consume them. In an era of intensified
consumption, the proliferation of lighting designs means that the expertise
and authority of such critics has been decentered, yet this has not quieted
their often vitriolic critiques. Indeed, this multiplicity heightens their aes-
thetic anxieties, inciting further desires to secure the social and cultural
distinction they seek.
As state operations shrink and control over energy supply is ceded to
corporations and fragmented outfits as part of neoliberal privatization
agendas, chaotic and disorganized provision results in highly uneven dis-
tribution and, in the worst cases, frequent blackouts. As the age of peak oil
passes, such situations perhaps conjure up dystopian scenarios in which
a few scarce lights flicker in a postnuclear or environmentally devastated
world. Light is prefigured to indicate possession of scarce resources or as
scattered sites of human settlement. In certain areas of the world, the
inequalities between those who have access to reliable lighting and those
who lack such access is marked. The distribution of illumination in devel-
oping countries such as Ghana and India, as I have shown, is skewed in
favor of the powerful, who control supply and have the means to acquire
alternative technologies when power is uneven or curtailed. Such inequali-
ties persist in certain realms and expand in others. We might envisage that
current austerity agendas being pursued by Western governments and
related political decisions to starve local governments of funding might
eventuate in a reduction in public lighting that resonates with the iniqui-
tous distribution of illumination in earlier times. In this case, rather than
understood as a right, illumination may be recast as a scarce “positional
good,” possessed by only a few people (Hirsch 1977).
Despite these neoliberal agendas that threaten universal electric sup-
ply, a host of strategies are deployed by the weak to gain access to lighting,
for instance, by subversively tapping into power lines and collaborating to
purchase communal forms of illumination. Tendencies to create dispari-
ties in the quality of lighting allocated to different urban areas is also being
combated by socially conscious light designers who campaign for deprived
areas to be better lit. They also engage in collaborative projects to devise
high-quality, place-specific lighting to sites that have previously been sup-
plied with inferior functional lighting. The future global distribution of
216 Conclusion
lighting, and of poor-and high-quality illumination, is likely to be highly

contested, fraught, and locally variable.
Moving Away from Standardized Lighting

Perhaps the most exciting developments lie in burgeoning approaches to
deploying illumination in creative ways, heralding the replacement of the
poor-quality lighting that has culminated in widespread disenchantment
with illuminated space. The demise of standardized measurements and
techniques among professionals indicates a far more variegated approach
to illumination, in which light designers are increasingly embracing aesthetic
and technological diversity.
Enhanced place-making strategies are using innovative forms of illumi-
nation that underpin the qualities of particular sites and areas. Plans tai-
lored to architectural characteristics, peculiar features, and historic sites
are fostering new ways to produce a sense of place after dark. Current
design approaches are also offering greater spatial legibility, moving away
from the light clutter that has made many urban places chaotic in appear-
ance. Recent advances also include the installation of site-specific artworks
that respond to and celebrate place, resonating with its history and cultural
identity, producing new spaces of public assembly. Already constituting a
provocative and diverse accumulation of works, art installations and con-
ceptual pieces continue to develop new modes of expression that foster sen-
sory reattunement, produce disorientation, and defamiliarize place. Other
strategies involve the codesign of the city with collaborating communities,
fostering a broader appreciation of forms of vernacular illumination and
testing out the possibilities promised by new forms of responsive lighting.
These unprofessional expressions are also evident in the vast increase in
the range of lighting produced for the domestic market, with many designs
to choose from, providing greater scope for households to move away from
standardized designs.
The continued expansion of festivals also heralds the emergence of
challenging works that defamiliarize places, bringing into question norma-
tive ways in which they are sensed and understood. Besides revealing the
operations through which the sensible is distributed, they delight onlookers
and participants. Other illuminated festive installations encourage forms
of physical engagement and social interaction, generating a conviviality
that temporarily transforms nocturnal public spaces. Such festivals, more-
over, are occasions on which experimentation and exchange among art-
ists, designers, engineers, and technicians occur, extending and enhancing
Conclusion 217
creativity. Yet such festive occasions are not only shaped by professionals,
for the increase in local, smaller-scale events such as lantern parades pro-
motes forms of vernacular creativity and fosters the building of a shared
sense of belonging.
Though these developments are undoubtedly progressive and sug-
gest that the vocabulary of light design is expanding, with a myriad array
of creative and technological advances, perhaps this is a phase that will
become exhausted and illumination will devolve once more into standard-
ized, homogeneous forms and generic festive attractions as artistic and
technical innovation slows. Furthermore, political imperatives for greater
sustainability may impinge on diversity, restricting the scope for lighting
fixtures that depend on larger quantities of electricity for their efficacy. Yet
perhaps a greater threat is posed by the commercial appropriation of tech-
nical and artistic innovation to produce saturated advertising and promo-
tional nightscapes. While innovative forms of lighting are foregrounded
at today’s festivals and in artworks, capital is always liable to adopt and
adapt these inventions to sell commodities and broadcast corporate iden-
tity, exploiting inventive practices and compromising artistic creativity.
Revaluing Darkness
Another recent progressive development has been the dwindling influence
of dominant religious and enlightenment notions that contend that light
is good and darkness is bad. Such ideas have come under critical scrutiny
and seem to be losing their purchase, along with an awareness that light
and dark are never discrete, singular conditions but characterized by mul-
tiple levels and, moreover, need each other to be most effective. Modernist
notions that illumination should be maximized to push back the frontiers
of ignorance and enhance safety are losing their salience. For instance, it
increasingly seems absurdly financially profligate and wasteful in terms of
energy expenditure to allow the lights of large office blocks and streetlights
to blaze throughout the night while most urban inhabitants are asleep. Con-
cerns about the malign effects that constant bright lighting has on human
health are growing, as studies point to stress levels and lack of sleep, and
these are aligned with wider ecological concerns about the impact of illu-
mination on the rhythms of nocturnally active and migrating creatures.
Such anxieties may result in drastically lower levels of illumination and
the widespread installation of responsive systems that react to motion and
daylight to minimize energy output, switching lighting off when there is no
human presence.
218 Conclusion
A reconsideration of the positive attributes of darkness has been fur-

ther generated by various contemporary impulses to seek gloom. Most
obviously, dark sky campaigners aim to transform large swathes of rural
space, minimizing the effects of illumination to maximize conditions of
darkness after nightfall. The groups of astronomers, naturalists, and con-
servationists that promote the further spread of dark-sky designations offer
new ways to experience nocturnal space untainted by lighting, viewing an
unfamiliar star-filled sky and rekindling familiarity with dark landscapes
while generating tourist income. Darkness is likely to extend over ever more
space and may even encroach on urban desires to minimize skyglow.
As trepidation and moral aversion are replaced by more positive under-
standings of darkness, a plethora of attractions are emerging at which
people can seek diverse experiences in gloom or in total darkness. Ways
of moving through dark space—walking, driving, cycling, and by train—
offer a wholly different experience to the daylit landscape, reconfiguring
the visual apprehension of space as certain aspects disappear and others
become prominent, and foregrounding nonvisual sensations, as tactil-
ity, smell, and sound are enhanced. In completely dark restaurants, tour-
ist attractions, art spaces, and music venues, these nonvisual sensations
predominate. In dark spaces, other experiences may also be solicited, such
as intimacy, conviviality, imaginative conjecture, and meditation. Impor-
tantly, these modes of sensing space otherwise induce reflexivity about
ordinary sensory experience, revealing how culturally circumscribed and
habitual are the usual sensations that we take for granted.
Though it seems as if darkness will prevail in certain areas that have
been colonized by light, the rise of ever-larger cities and rural depopulation
in emerging economies are likely to result in far larger quantities of illumi-
nation to accompany this urban expansion. As illumination continues to
be conceived as an index of modernity and development in many realms,
formerly dark areas will be blasted with light, draining global energy
resources. Like light, as darkness becomes a more cherished quality, it may
become a positional good, as the wealthy seek places away from the glow
of the city. Conversely, the revaluing of darkness as a positive quality in a
more ecologically conscious future may ensure that its distribution is more
equitable, and that modern desires to saturate space with light diminish.
Acknowledgments
A s w i t h m o s t p r o j e c t s , this book has been a labor of love, though

latterly hard labor that has relied on the support and stimulation offered
by numerous people without whom it would have been impossible to com-
plete. The adventure started in 2009 when my colleague Steve Millington
and I became intrigued by the Christmas light displays on the exterior of
houses that emerged toward the festive season. Since then, Steve has been
an engaging companion in thinking about light and dark, accompanying
me in organizing several conference sessions and visits to Blackpool Illu-
minations. Other colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University have
also been very supportive. Special thanks to Emily Falconer, whose extra
ordinary research skills contributed to research into the Christmas lights,
Blackpool Illuminations, and dining in the dark.
The greatest stimulus to thinking through many of the issues explored
in this book was provided by Durham’s magnificent Institute of Advanced
Studies, where I was lucky enough to spend three months on a fellowship,
sharing thoughts and ideas in a convivial, romantic setting. I thank the
dynamic Veronica Strang for her fantastic support and for providing such
an exciting scholarly environment, and I am indebted to the fellows with
whom I shared such a memorable time, especially Julie Westerman.
Colleagues at Roskilde University have been extremely helpful in devel-
oping the themes explored here, providing me with a stimulating and com-
fortable home for two months. Mikkel Bille has been a constant source of
ideas and critical scrutiny, and I owe him much gratitude for his collegiality
and advice. It has been fabulous to share ideas with Jonas Larsen, Jørgen
Ole Bærenholdt, Casper Laing Ebbensgaard, and Kirsten Simonsen. Thanks
to the Carlsberg Foundation for supporting my visit.
I enjoyed a shorter fellowship at the University of Wollongong. I am
eternally thankful to Chris Gibson and Gordon Waitt for providing great
219
220 Acknowledgments
companionship and collegial support, not to mention accompanying me

on several adventures in and around Sydney. I thank Ben Gallan, Anna
de Jong, Victoria Ikutekbe, and Elyse Stanes. I subsequently spent a par-
ticularly enlivening time at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with
the wonderful Shanti Sumartojo, who was a supportive colleague as well as
great company.
I am grateful to the scholars in Berlin with whom I have shared many
conversations and enjoyable excursions, especially Josianne Meier and
Nona Schulte-Römer.
I have enormously enjoyed my association with Northumbria Uni-
versity, and I thank Ysanne Holt for offering numerous opportunities to
explore and communicate several of the ideas discussed in this book when
they were in formative stages.
I am thankful for the interest of the University of Minnesota Press in this
project, and I acknowledge the excellent support provided by Jason Weide-
mann, Erin Warholm-Wohlenhaus, and Paula Dragosh.
There is a host of other people with whom I have shared ideas and who
have supported my work on light and dark. These include Suvi Alt, Alice
Barnaby, Andrew Barnfield, Sarah Barns, Marie Bonte, Elettra Bordonaro,
Michael Bull, George Chatzinakos, Matt Cook, Dydia DeLyser, Jim Drob-
nick, Oliver Dunnett, Jim Edensor, Lars Frers, Katharina Gabriel, Collette
Halstead, Ron Haselden, Harriet Hawkins, Fiona Hillary, David Howes,
Tim Ingold, Sandy Isenstadt, Katharina Krause, Ankit Kumar, Mary Laing,
Hayden Lorimer, Chris Lowe, Katrin Lund, Craig Martin, Ruth McDermott,
Melissa Miles, Nina Morris, Hilary Orange, Joni Palmer, Elena Papadaki,
Margaret Petty, Sarah Pink, Tracey Potts, Mattias Qvistrom, Richard Ryan,
Anne Salmela, Susanne Seitinger, Rob Shaw, Jonathan Silver, Johanne
Sloan, Judy Spark, Will Straw, Jonathan Taggart, Pip Thornton, Anna
Turunen, Theo van Leeuwen, Phillip Vannini, Rosemary Williams, and
Phil Wood.
Finally, the greatest inspiration and support have come from my family,
my marvelous sons, Jay and Kim Kothari, who accompanied me on several
adventures into light and dark, and, most of all, the lovely Uma Kothari.
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Index
Aalborg, Denmark, 62 Beaumont, Matthew: on London’s

Accra, Ghana, 92 night, 173
Aether, 24 Bedfordshire, England, 198–200
Africa: cities, 183; as Darkest Africa, Belize, 29–30
84; as the Dark Continent, 169 Benjamin, Walter: commercial lighting,
Alhambra, Granada, 44 154; profane illuminations, 118
Alves, Teresa, 139, 182 Bennett, Jane: re-enchantment, 124
Andalusian architecture, 44 Bentham, Jeremy: panopticon, 86
Anglo-Saxon churches, 42 Berlin, 62; Postdamer Platz, 65, 76–77,
Antarctic, 34 79; Weimar, 90–91; West/East, 92,
Arctic Circle, 34, 37, 200 110, 127
Attlee, James, 54, 167, 169, 180, Bille, Mikkel, 13, 38, 43, 46; cozy-
199 light, 158–59, 169; on exclusion-
aurora borealis, 23, 34 ary methods, 86, 142, 143, 146; on
Australia, 35, 93–94; Anzac Day, 146 Nordic lights and Danish churches,
47–49
Baek, Jin: borders of light and dark- Bissell, David: on train travel, 197–98
ness, 46 Black Panthers, 172–73
Baker, Julian: British travelers in India, Blackpool, 74; image of, 97, 151–54;
176 Pleasure Beach, 175. See also Black-
Bakhtin, Mikhail: carnival’s function, pool Illuminations
115 Blackpool Illuminations, 70–72, 76,
Baldwin, Peter: on urban America, 88, 79, 97–98, 110, 151–54, 161
169 Blade Runner (film), 214
Baltz, Lewis: photographs of Nevada Blue Hour Lullaby (film), 86–87
desert, 35 Boddy, Trevor: new urban prosthetics,
Barnaby, Alice: on London, 175; sym- 145
bolic repertoire of violent political Böhme, Gernot: on atmospheres,
protests, 109 139–41, 144; ecstasies, 143; on
241
242 Index
new perceptual pleasures, 109; no- common sense, 27, 81, 95; manifesta-
tion of ecstatic, 13, 36 tions of, 107, 125
Bonfire Night, 113–14 communitas: experience of, 130; sense
Bourdieu, Pierre: class identities, 94–95 of, 149; temporary, 131
British: Dark Sky movement, 181–82; community-led: collaborations, 59; ini-
landscapes, 31; popular culture, 70, tiatives, 114
75, 79, 97, 98 conditions of luminosity, 29
Bronfen, Elisabeth, 23–24, 168, 170 Constable, John, 36
Brox, Jane: on cafés and taverns, 54; on contestation, 58, 85, 98, 114, 145,
nostalgia, 75, 82, 89, 179 214
Byzantine churches, 42, 146 conviviality, xiii, 55, 114, 130, 131,
136, 137, 151–53, 158, 159, 170,
California Correctional Institution, 86 172, 178, 179, 183, 201, 205,
Canadian off-gridders, 159, 185–86 216, 218
carnivalesque, 131, 147, 151, 156, Copenhagen: Sundholm, 73–74; Tivoli
176 Gardens, 70
“cathedrals of light” (Speer), 93 coproduction of atmosphere, 143, 151,
CCTV, 85 154, 156
celestial tourism, 34 Craig, Martin: photographic practices,
Château de Chambord, 187 45
Christianity, 24, 42, 84; belief, 168–69 Cronin, Anne, 101–2
Christmas, 72, 95; lights, 98, 102–3, Crouch, David: lay geographical knowl-
118, 219; modern, 157 edge, 28
Chromosaturation (Cruz-Diez), 4–7, 17, Crowd Darkening (de Schutter), 62
123 Cubitt, Sean: on desert, 35; establish-
church architecture, 24; western Euro- ment of monopolies, 89; evolving
pean, 42 set of meanings, 81
Church of the Light (Japan), 46 cultural: capital, xi, 82, 94, 98, 106–7;
Cichosz, Maria: tripping, notion of, 137 conventions, 4, 27; identity, 31, 37,
Claessen, Constance: sensory values, 28 38, 216; practices, xi, 23, 25, 28,
Clark, Kenneth: romantic conjunction 41, 49, 58, 94, 129, 139, 150, 158,
of science and ecstasy, 36 172; quarters, 73, 97; representa-
Cloud Gate (Kapoor), 39 tions, 10–11, 12, 38, 49, 173, 211;
Cochrane, Allan, 144 values, ix, xi, 9–10, 28, 81, 159,
codesign, of the city, 62–64, 134–35, 161, 169, 175, 210, 213
216 culture-led regeneration, strategies,
collective practices, 93, 157 111
Collins, Jo: artificial light, 55; phantas-
magorical city, 109; technological Daniel, John: day/night distinction,
uncanny, 137 191; vast sectors of the unseen, 11
Commission for Architecture and the dark: art, 184–85; design, 184; tour-
Built Environment, 101 ism, 170
Index 243
Debord, Guy: society of the spectacle, Fête de Blé, 148

113 Fête des Lumières, 59–60, 110, 116,
Department for Communities and Local 125–26
Government, 101 Florida, Richard: creative class, 97, 111
desert: landscape, 35, 38; nocturnal Foucault, Michel, 169
blackness of, 87 Freeberg, Ernest: “City Beautiful” cam-
Diack, Heather: attention economy, 113 paigners, 58; colonial revivalists,
Dickens, Charles, 55 74–75; electric illumination, 84,
Didi-Huberman, Georges, 20 180
digital mapping, 116–17
distribution of the sensible, x, xi, 84, Galaxia III (Rose), 123–24
99, 101, 103, 106 Gallan, Ben: dualisms, 183; overillumi-
Dōgen, 8 nation, 57
Doha, Qatar, 147 Gallaway, Terrel: on the night sky, 181
Douglas, Mawson, 34 Gargunnock Hills (Scotland), 14–15
Drobnick, Jim: the poetry of existence, Garnert, Jan: representations of mid-
210 night, 37–38
dual cities, 92 gas light, 55, 56, 88–89
Durham, 60, 78, 146. See also Lumiere geographical inequality, 90
German Pavilion (Barcelona), 45–46
Eclipse (Amadou and Mariam), 205–7 Ghana, 215
Edinburgh, 186; Holyrood Park, glare, 57. See also skyglow
195–96. See also Speed of Light Glasgow, 86
Edison, Thomas, 169 Gleber, Anke, 53
Ekirch, Roger, 82, 166, 167, 171–72 Glen Trool, 190–95
Elcott, Noam: on darkness, 175 Gotham, Kevin Fox: carnival
Elias, Norbert: civilizing process, 187 mask, 112; hegemonic ideologies,
Enchanted Forest (Scotland), 120–23, 113
160 Graffiti Research Lab (LTS), 64
Enlightenment, 168–69, 170, 180 Grynsztejn, Madeleine: on Eliasson’s
environmental art, 38 work, 9
Europe, 29, 145, 171, 184, 190; cities,
54, 184 habitual practices, 100
Evans, Martyn: wonder, 124 Hamadoun, Tandina, 206
eventification, 111, 114 Haussmann, Baron, 83
everyday life, viii, 53, 63, 158, 166 Healy, Stephen, 102, 145
Heelas, Paul: New Age religious beliefs,
festivals, 72; and carnivals, 113; festi- 171
valization, 111; light, xii, 110–11, Hera, 24
125–37, 139; spatial functionalities, Hermit’s Grotto, 175
115, 124–25, 140, 150–51, 160, Hindu rituals, 93
216–17; urban arts, 111–14 Hoi An, 130
244 Index
iconic settings, 91 109; nocturnalisation, 165, 168,

Illuminasia, 70–72 170–71, 172
impressionist painters, 25, 36 Krajina, Zlatan: ethnographic study, 106
India: Bihar, 93; cities, 84; rural, 93, Kremlin, 85, 160
176; urban, 184, 215
Ingold, Tim: affectivity to the sensible Lamp for Mary, 66–68
world, 7; temporalities, 12, 17, Las Vegas, 75
18–20, 22, 25, 28 La Tour de Soleil, 85, 214
installations, xii, 9, 27, 34, 39, 47, Le Corbusier, 45
49, 58; illuminated, 68, 69, 72, LED, 57, 58, 60, 61–62, 63, 66, 68, 69,
79, 81, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 98, 70, 77, 101, 102, 105, 118, 127,
105, 106, 114, 118, 123, 127, 128, 134, 158, 160
132, 134, 135–36, 139, 148–49, Lefebvre, Henri: importance of
151, 154–56, 159–60, 161, 186, rhythms, 30; quotidian, 99
190, 207, 216; temporary, 63, Light Castle (Salmela and Turunen), 72
65–66 light: designers, x, xi, xiv, 53, 60,
International Dark Sky Association, 57, 63, 72–73, 102, 137, 144, 145,
180–81, 190 182, 185, 215, 216; installations,
ION Orchard Shopping Mall, 102 65–69, 72, 114, 161, 190; “Light
Iraq, invasion of, 87–88 Discipline,” 87–88
Isenstadt, Sandy: linguistic particles, Lighting Urban Community Interna-
91, 198 tional, 59
Islam, 24; art, 44 Lightning Field (De Maria), 38–39
Istanbul, 75 liminoid, 115
Lingis, Alphonso, 12–13; changing lev-
Jakle, John: nocturnal blandscapes, els of light, 14
56–57, 90 Lloyd, Jones, 200
Jakob, Doreen: eventification, 111 Loi Krathong, 72, 110, 130
John Rylands Library, 185 London, 55; Dans le Noir?, 203–5, 210;
Jordan, 159 darkest, 84, 169; nightscape, 56;
Jouons avec les temps (Gauthé), 116 Olympic ceremony, 147, 154–56,
Julie, Guy: urban designscapes, 97, 112 173, 174, 175, 177–78; Trafalgar
Junichiro, Tanizaki: electric illumina- Square, 146; Victorian, 88, 109
tion, 58, 176–77 Lorimer, Hayden, 195–96
Los Angeles, 33, 65–66
Kahn, Louis, 46 Lumiere, 117–18, 128, 148
Kersalé, Yann, 68–69 Luminous Nights, 63
Kielder Forest, 19, 22, 30, 31. See also Lyon, 60, 126; opera house, 68–69. See
Skyspace also Fête des Lumières
Kojo Moe, 78
Koslofsky, Craig: on street lighting, 54, MacFarlane, Robert, 192–93
83; new margins of exclusion, 89, Macpherson, Hannah, 18, 193, 202
Index 245
Macula, 126–27 Mojave Desert, 86

Maeshowe, Orkney, 23 Monet, Claude, 25–26
Magdalene laundries, 127–28 Montreal, Quartier des spectacles, 111
Major, Mark: illegibility of London’s Moonraking Festival, 130–31
nightscape, 56 Morris, Nina: human bodies and land-
Manhattanhenge (Wasserman), 39–41 scapes interaction, 11, 182; on
Manual for Streets (document), 101 NVA’s event, 186
Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 169
Massumi, Brian: transpersonal or pre- Nasaw, David: new landscape of moder-
personal intensities, 142 nity, 54–55
materialities, 11, 29, 41, 46, 142, 143, national landscape ideologies, 35, 182
145–46, 151, 160 neoliberal: agendas, 215; light festivals,
Matusiak, Barbara: on Nordic light, 37 xii, 131, 137; politics, 110–11; pro-
McDermott Baxter Light Art, 34 grams, 92; strategies, 112
McKim, Joel, 111, 112 neon, 54, 68, 70, 75, 134, 153
McQuire, Scott: new map of the city, neo-pagan, groups rituals, 24
89, 104, 110; perceptual labora- Neumann, Dietrich: artistic medium,
tory, 55 54, 92
medieval: Europe, 145; festivals Nevada desert, 35
and carnivals, 113, 115, 137; times, new lighting technologies, 61, 136
43, 88, 167; town, 166, 171, 185, New York City, 39; blackouts, 178–79,
187 180, 189; Central Park, 201, 203;
Mediterranean Sea, 29; cities, 183; Dialogue in the Dark, 201; Luna
skies, 45 Park, 70, 110; McGraw Hill Build-
Melbin, Murray: on artificial illumina- ing, 118, 173–74; Singer building,
tion, 54; illumination as a form of 90; Times Square, vii, 91–92, 101,
colonization, 165 103, 202
Melbourne, 127–28, 150 nocturnal: activity, 82; atmospheres,
Millennium Park, 39, 110 111; city, 55, 82, 172, 195, 214;
Miles, Mellissa: Australian sunlight, 35 creatures, 6; environment, 53, 60,
Milton, John: Paradise Lost, 168 64, 181, 183, 190; experience,
MIMMI (Minneapolis Interactive Macro- 34, 167; habitat, 181; illumina-
Mood Installation), 69 tion, 169; landscape, 12, 88, 92,
Minority Report (film), 103–4 102, 176, 186, 189, 197; public
Model for a Timeless Garden (Eliasson), 4, morality, 82; risks, 166; sites of so-
7–10, 17 cialization, 54; space, xiii, 64, 66,
modern: city, 55, 56, 90, 104, 137, 82, 101, 124, 148, 198, 199, 200,
174; times, 44, 172 216, 218; sublime, 173, 174, 189;
modernist, xiii, 29; architects, 44–46; values, 170
discourses, 165; form 40–41; nocturnalisation, 165
notions, 217; sculptures, 118; nonvisual apprehension, 13–14
thought, 189 Nordic: architects, vii; identity, 36;
246 Index
landscapes, 38; light, 34, 37, power relations, 81, 114

46–49; nations, 36; paintings, 37 pre-Raphaelite art, 44
North Atlantic Drift, 32
Norway, 33–34 Quinn, Bernadette, 111, 112–13
Nuit Blanche festival, 111–12, 113, 171
Nuremberg, Nazi rallies in, 93, 154 Rancière, Jacques: distribution of the
Nye, David, 54; lighting systems, 90, sensible, x, 99
177–78, 179, 180 religious art, 42
Nyx, 23–24 Riley, Bridget, 123
River That Flows Both Ways, The (Finch),
Otter, Chris: on electric illumination, 39
55–56, 74; urban differentiation, Robinson, James: on camouflage, 87
88; on Victorian England, 83–84 Rocky Mount, 89
Rome: Forum, 187; Pantheon, 41–42
Pallasmaa, Juhani: on Nordic paintings, Rose, Mitch: cultural interpretations of
37, 209 landscape, 22
Palmer, Bryan, 84, 172, 173–74 Rundle Lantern, 104–6
Paris, 69, 75, 82–83; Eiffel Tower, 85; Rycroft, Simon: vitality of the material
gas lighting, 88, 109, 174, 184 world, 6–7, 123
Parthenon, 187
passive spectatorship, 114 Sabah, Malaysia: tropical light, 38
patterns, on plumage, 17 Saint-Pierre Cathedral (Nantes), 69
Petty, Margaret, 65; American domestic Salford, Ordsall Hall, 176
lighting, 94, 114 Schivelbusch, Wolfgang: disenchanted
phenomenological: aspects, 22, 23; night, 53–55, 82–83; lighting of fes-
focus, 4; integration, 24, 26, 39, tivity, 109, 156–57; modern cities,
41, 45 166; on train travel, 197, 198
Picard, David, 111, 125, 129, 135–36 Schlör, Joachim, 55; on Paris blackouts,
Pink, Sarah: everyday illuminated at- 75, 88–89, 184
mospheres, 157–58 Scotland, 14, 31–32, 120, 186, 190
Piper, John: on Reformation, 43 Seamon, David: place ballets, 28
place: identity, 35, 129; making, x, Seitinger, Susanne: light bodies, 63–64
97, 114–15, 125, 129, 137, 216; Seurat, George: chromoluminarism, 25
sense of, vii, xi, xii, 27, 31, 47, 64, Shanghai, 91
65, 110, 114, 129, 131, 150, 167, Sharpe, William, 172, 173–74
203, 216 Shaw, Rob, 86, 101, 210
plein air painting, practice of, 37 Skagen, 37
Plummer, Henry: modern turn to light, Skeggs, Beverley: symbolic economy of
46; Nordic light, 46–47, 49; on Nor- class conflict, 98
dic nations, 36–37 skyglow, 57
post-structuralist studies, 4 Skyspace (Turrell), 19–22, 30–31
Poulsen, Esben: patterns of human mo- Slaatta, Tore: experimental digital ar-
bility, 62 chitecture, 103
Index 247
Social Light Movement, 72–74 Terra Incognita (McDermott Baxter Light

Solnit, Rebecca: on the perceptual and Art), 34
the symbolic, 22–23 Thibaud, Jean Paul: pervasive quality,
Soltani, Amir, 104 141, 143–45
Sorensen, Roy, 8, 202 This Variation (Seghal), 207–8, 210
Soviet Union, 92 Tilley, Christopher, 38
spatial horizontalism, 18 Tokyo, Tower of Wind, 68, 91
Spectra (Ikeda), 154–56, 161 topophilia, 131, 149
Speed of Light (NVA), 186, 187, 195, Toronto, 118, 171. See also Nuit
196 Blanche festival
SPOTS (installation), 65 Tourlentes, Stephen: photographs of
stained glass, technologies, 43–44, American prisons, 86
103, 157 TRANSITION, 74
Starpath (product), 64 travel literature, 35, 41, 49
Stephens, Angharad Closs: feelings of Tromsø, Norway, 34
togetherness, 147 tropics, 30, 200
Stevens, Quentin: on urban festivals, Tuan, Yi-Fu: on collective belonging
112, 136 131, 149; types of primordial chaos,
Stonehenge, 23 170
Storr: Unfolding Landscape, The (NVA), Turner, J. M. W., 25; prize, viii
186
Strang, Veronica: materiality of the United Kingdom, 29, 95, 101; econ-
world, 23 omy, 111, 154, 159–60, 176
sublime: astronomical, 181, 182; in- unreflexive practices, 27
dustrial, 78, 86, 97; light, 35, 39; urban America, 89–90, 169
nocturnal, 173; power, 42; sense of Urban Light (Burden), 65–66, 160
the, 10, 24–25 Urban Tree Project (Ample Projects), 128
Subluminal, 185
Submarine Caves, 175 van Dyke, Chris: short-lived events, 12;
Sunderland rail station, 66 spatial and historical contingen-
surveillance, 81–82, 83; hypersurveil- cies, 22
lance, 86; surveillance-saturated Vannini, Philip: techniques for everyday
dystopia, 104, 113, 145, 172, 183, living, 28, 159, 185
192, 214; systems of, 85 Vasseleau, Cathryn: field of vision, 41;
Susik, Abigail, 64; technological inno- tactility, 14
vations, 103, 116 Vauxhall Gardens, 175
Sydney, 34, 63, 66, 134; Luna Park, VE Day, 146, 178
70. See also VIVID Light Festival vernacular, xi, 39, 58, 59, 65, 69, 72,
Symphony of Lights, 65, 114 74, 79, 97, 102, 110, 114, 139,
144, 215–17
Tallmadge, John: dominance of visual Victorian England, 83–84, 176; era,
apprehension, 193 157; London, 88; novelists, 174
Taoist meditation, 171 Vienna, 83, 174
248 Index
VIVID Light Festival, 34, 110, 123, Williams, Robert: cloak of darkness, 85;
128, 131–36, 151 on Night spaces, 170
Wise, Amanda: convivial multiculture,
Wagenfeld, Malte, 19 151
Warsaw, Poland, 75, 85 Work No. 227: The lights going on and off
Wasserman, Andrew, 40–41 (Creed), viii
Weightman, Barbara, 23, 24 Wylie, John, 4; lack of separation, 10;
Welton, Martin: luminous super landscape of visible things, 192;
abundance, 208–9 visual apprehension, 14
Western: culture, 165; Europe, 42, 184
Western Highlands (Scotland), 32–33 Young, Dianna: synaesthetic effects,
Williams, Raymond: structures of feel- 4, 7
ing, 161
Tim Edensor teaches cultural geography at Manchester Metropolitan
University. He is author of Tourists at the Taj; National Identity, Popular
Culture, and Everyday Life; and Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics, and Mate-
riality, as well as editor of Geographies of Rhythm and coeditor of Spaces of
Vernacular Creativity and Urban Theory beyond the West: A World of Cities. He
was formerly editor of Tourist Studies and has written on walking, driving,
football cultures, and urban materiality.

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F ROM L IG H T T O DA R K

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University of Minnesota Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

Published by the University of Minnesota Press

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-­free paper

The University of Minnesota is an equal-­opportunity educator and employer.

Part II. Illumination

Part III. Dark

T h e lig h t o f d a w n triggers birds to begin singing; as dusk draws in,

various artistic engagements with darkness and light, revealing a med-

tively human perceptual capacities. The chapter concludes by identifying

contemporaneous power, resistance, and accommodation are expressed

ever been subject to contesting, multivalent understandings. The contin-

F o r s ig h t e d p e o p l e , light shapes how they perceive, interpret, and

allowing the experience of a color spectrum, whereas the rods operate

as “a situation happening in space,” focusing on color, aesthetics, and per-

creatures and their environments; for humans specifically, through our

fountains of varying flow and height, a strobe light pulsing to freeze-­frame

Seeing the Vital Landscape with Light

as photosynthesis accelerates, and in the flowers that bloom as the sun’s

changing “levels” of light, characterized by depth of field and brightness,

gaze that provokes intimations of texture and temperature without directly

and levels of moisture contribute to multisensory engagements that also

Seeing with the Light of the Sky

Light circulates through the sky as electromagnetic radiation, and

Cultures of Seeing Landscape with Light

This resonates with Veronica Strang’s (2005) insistence that we make

sublime” continue to inform sensibilities about how to represent light and

attention to the processual ways in which landscape, always a ceaselessly

Daylight, Place, and Landscape

time-­space. This familiar space, its affordances and functions, is produced

particularly distinctive: its plentiful lochs reflect water, the somewhat

We were travelling through the Western Highlands of Scotland, my mother

The potency of the experience was provoked by a combination of elemen-

Representing the Light of Landscape

These evocative accounts demonstrate how the light of certain landscapes

I have mentioned the impressionists’ endeavors to represent the vital-

By virtue of its remote location, interpretations of Lightning Field tend to

The Architectural Manipulation of Luminosity:

Archaeologists speculate that this may have had a sacred function as a

Subsequent rapid development of stained-­glass technologies and art-

tive of nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century environmental campaign-

constructed in 1929 and reconstructed in the 1980s, employed modern

daylighting effects, and grounding architecture in the luminous quali-

toward particular colors, textures, and features; communicate sacred and

Illumination and Its Discontents

city was ostensibly transformed from “a dark and treacherous netherworld

As electric illumination spread throughout the nineteenth and twentieth

teeming, muddled multiplicity of visual practices that cannot be reduced

characterized urban experience have been replaced by a uniform glare. The

Dissatisfaction with prevailing forms of illumination is nothing new,

More Subtle and Sustainable Lighting

sedimentation of expertise has resulted in educational and training pro-

to pursue quantity at the expense of quality in illumination when techno-

Enhancing Place with Light

Vernacular Illumination and Collaborative Design

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

fountains of varying flow and height, a strobe light pulsing to freeze-frame

time-space. This familiar space, its affordances and functions, is produced

Subsequent rapid development of stained-glass technologies and art-

tive of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century environmental campaign-

practice this co-creation of the nightscape. While the foremost objective of

ate” lighting in the British state-sponsored document Manual for Streets

Report, the Hollywood science fiction movie that conjures up a surveillance-

deliver a profoundly unusual encounter with the countryside. The three-

Blackpool has historically released working-class bodies from every-

how the nineteenth-century expansion of domestic gas and electric light

multiple options to increasingly reflexive, design-conscious home owners

mystical theology in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe that also