Jacob Liberman “Color is color, you might think. What does a color have to do with how I feel? If you ask a physicist about the nature of reality and the foundation of life, they will tell you that everything in life— everything you see, hear, feel, taste, and touch— is a vibration. Take any object. Yes, it seems solid until you put it under a microscope. Continue to magnify what you see and eventually all that remains is its vibrational signature. At the most fundamental level, the real underpinning of reality is the vibration of light. Color is just our visual perception of light vibrating at specific frequencies.” OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS In the last 20 years, several people have looked at redefining light either through the development and adaptation of old ideologies or through the development of new theories on light. Here are excerpts from an essay I wrote in 1997 for a prominent lighting design journal:
Murray Whyte is a contemporary journalist from Canada, reflecting on our zeitgeist. He published an article in 2008 entitled “Darkness: Basking in the Dimming of the Light,” which looked at how we perceive our environments as spaces of light, shadow, and darkness. In the article, Whyte gives examples from Toronto where he critiques the existence of the after dark world in modern society. Whyte paints a picture of Yonge Dundas Square as blanketed by billboard televisions and flashing lights atop every building, in which it is impossible to escape what he calls “the tyranny of light.” Whyte makes it clear that he is not critiquing the commercialization of public spaces, but rather the physiological effect that results from the influx of light. In noting that we have only mastered light in the last century, Whyte makes some interesting points on how light has gone from a resource to present certainty, that not only as long ago as the era of J. Edgar Hoover were industrialists promoting the expansion of light in an effort to make streets safe. “American ingenuity and productive geniuses have provided the means of eliminating darkness from our streets, parks, playgrounds, and other public places.” Whyte points out that during this period of literal “enlightenment,” darkness was treated as a source of danger and evil like never before. Our industrial and technological strength exerted itself thoroughly through the implementation of not only light but the perpetuation of the fear of darkness. Hoover was not alone in his ideology during this period as Whyte points out, citing humanist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s perspective on the issue through the decisive statement; “There is no more night.” Whyte critiques the views of Hoover and Emerson in their lack of appreciation for the subtlety of shadow, while also accepting that they were simply conforming to the popular ideology of the time that was developed from a standing perspective on the binary of good and evil as light versus dark. Whyte also refers to the effects that the predisposition towards light and dark have on color. He mentions the relationship between “dark” and “black,” and “light” and “white,”
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“Light facilitates illumination and plays the role of an intermediary in making the world around us visible. Light is a form of electromagnetic energy to which the organs of sight react; it aids in seeing and recognition of people and places. I perceive light as a diaphanous unifying medium; a medium with a certain volume; a medium with a certain porosity that fills the space. Some of it you can walk through and we call that ambient light, while the other type creates boundaries and edges that define a space. It is like luminous clay; to be sculpted and colored for art, and then diagnosed and modified for function. Light is the medium, while lighting is a concept and a point of view. Light is the means to an end; lighting is the vehicle for these means, and the truthfulness of creation and a sincerity to the space lit is the final goal. Light and space are mutually dependent— one cannot exist without another. Light in a space is easily understood when seen as the colloquial paint brush, revealing and hiding elements in a space for comfort, productivity, safety, and an appropriate ambience. In that way, lighting can be appropriately referred to as the art of revealment and concealment.”
C O N T E X TUA LIZING LIG HT
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki “And yet so far as I know the West has never been disposed to delight in shadows. Japanese ghosts have traditionally had no feet: Western ghosts have feet but are transparent. As even this trifle suggests, pith darkness has always occupied our fantasies, while in the West even ghosts are as clear as glass.”
