Configuring Light, Staging the Social

This week a guest post from Dimitros Tsiokaras from our Melbourne Studio.

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to read more about Slater and Sloane’s work.