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Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light

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 DIALOGUE AND UNIVERSALISM
No. 4/2014

Gernot Böhme

LIGHT AND SPACE. ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIGHT1

To Heinz Paetzold on his 60th birthday

ABSTRACT

As its subtitle suggests, the essay is a phenomenological account of the diverse ways in
which light can be experienced by the senses. Böhme divides these experiences into two
types depending on whether they concern the relation between light and space (the cate-
gories ”light-cleared space”,”lightspace”, ”lights in space”) or between light and objects
(„things in light”, „light upon things”). Böhme sees the synthesis of both these types of
experiences in the illumination phenomenon, in which spatial/light effects and the way
in which objects are illuminated combine to create a specific atmosphere during the
sensual, bodily experiencing of space. Böhme also discusses the applications of light
effects in contemporary architecture and art.
Keywords: phenomenology; light; light source; points of light; shadow, space;
brightness; clearing; glow; matt glow; illumination; atmosphere.

1. INTRODUCTION

“City lights, artificial light, new media—the night turns to day, cities be-
come oceans of light. [...] In the evening’s artificial light even the ugliness of
a metropolis like Tokyo transforms into a glittering, vibrating, fluorescent,
milling sea of luminosity, an ecstasy of colour and movement full of tension,
bustle and haste, and intensely stimulating.”2

—————————
1
Böhme, G. 2001. “Licht und Raum. Zur Phänomenologie des Lichts” [Towards the Phenome-
nology of Light]. In:. Symbolisches Flanieren. Kulturphilosophische Streifzüge. Behrens, R., K.
Kresse, R. M. Peplow (Eds.). Hannover: Wehrhahn, 142–157.
2
Schnell, R. 1993. “City Lights. Zur medialen Interdiskursivität der großen Stadt” [City Lights.
On the Medial Discursiveness of Big Cities]. In: Das Verstehen von Hören und Sehen. Aspekte
der Medienästhetik [Understanding Hearing and Seeing. Aspects of Media Aesthetics]. Fürnkäs,
J., P. Richter, R. Schnell, Sh. Yoshijima (Eds.).Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 67.
6 Gernot Böhme

These words come from an essay by Ralf Schnell entitled City Lights, whose
author resorts to media theory in describing his enrapturement with night-time
Tokyo. However fascinated one may be with Tokyo (today Shibuya seems to
have taken over from Times Square in bustling crowds and dazzling lights), the
question remains whether Schnell is really able to express his aesthetic impres-
sions well. Is Tokyo normally ugly and transforms into a princess in the eve-
ning? Are the enchanting night lights only a cover thrown over bleak architec-
ture? Or should one rather say that the described night life is the life of the Shi-
buya municipality and all those dazzling neon signs, beaming spotlights and
swinging screens are an integral part of the local architecture? Space is created
not only by walls but also by light, alignment and perspective, not only by stone
cornices and cantilevered balconies but also by illumination. Facades owe the
way they look not only to window layouts and stucco work, but also to light.
Architects have always known that you can build with light and have striven to
work with it over history. Egyptian priests erected temples in such a way as to
allow the rising Sun to illuminate statues of their deities through their open
doors, the Pantheon used to open itself upwards towards the light, and abbot
Suger wanted to celebrate Epiphany by illuminating his Abbey of St-Denis.
However, the technical mastering of light around the mid-19th century brought
a substantial change to this traditional approach to light. While heretofore light
enhanced a building’s integration with its surroundings (Umgebung) in coopera-
tion with architecture, the emergence of light technologies gradually made it a
means of architectural—a unique construction material or formation element.
Of course the role of natural light in architecture rose considerably with the
evolution of steel and glass construction technology. However, the real break-
through in relations between light and architecture came with artificial light.
Even though the evolution of artificial lighting from the Argand lamp through
gas lamps and incandescent mantles to arc lamps and lightbulbs was extremely
arduous and incomplete and the possibilities of shaping light by means of re-
flectors, glass and screening were still barely explored, it would be hard to
imagine Paris’s galleries, department store windows and modern theatres with-
out it.3 But it was the 20th century with its seemingly unending outcrop of light-
generating and light-forming technologies – from mirrors, prisms and lenses to
ion lighting, the polariser, the laser, the photomultiplier, optical fibre and many
more—that gave us full control over light. Modern light-generating and control
technologies have opened the door to such a broad array on lighting options and
light effects, that we appear to be in urgent need of some orientation in them all.
As long as our technical possibilities were limited—as in the 19th century—we
were perforce committed to adjusting our aims to the means at hand. Today this
relation has been reversed, and we can first set our goals regarding light—e.g. in
—————————
3
Schivelbusch, W. 1983. Lichtblicke. Zur Geschichte der künstlichen Helligkeit im 19.
Jahrhundert [Rays of Hope. On the History of Artificial Luminance]. Munich: Hanser.
 Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light 7

architecture, stage design, entertainment, etc.—and then ask about the technolo-
gies with which to attain them. This, however, requires us to be able to express
ourselves and know about light. In other words, we need a phenomenology of
light. In its development we can assume that almost all the experiences it will be
able to define are very old. Still, it may be that the construction of a phenome-
nology of light is only possible through the diversified handling of light enabled
by technology. Even Goethe’s Theory of Colours, however polemical with re-
gard to Newtonian optics, takes its beginnings from the prismatic, i.e. techno-
logical, development of the light spectrum.

2. PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIGHT

What is phenomenology of light? I shall answer this question by recalling

Goethe’s very fitting colour definition: “colour is a law of nature in relation
with the sense of sight.”4 Perhaps the phenomenology of light consists precisely
in studying this “law of nature in relation with the sense of sight”—whereby
students will soon realise, that they can by no means limit themselves to colour
but must also take account of all the remaining light phenomena like glowing,
brilliance, flickering, shadow, and much more. Let me use an example to show
what is special about such studies of nature in relation with the sense of sight.
Arthur Zajonc must be credited with one of the most recent attempts to com-
pile all the experiences and notions we associate with light—from physics to
mythology—in o n e book. Titled, Catching the Light: The Entwined History of
Light and Mind,5 the book admittedly begins with a strange and totally nonphe-
nomenological statement: Zajonc claims we cannot see light. To prove his point
he built a box into which he sent light from a projector—but, by means of some
device, locked the light inside the box in such a way that it could not find its
walls. Curiously, Zajonc divulges nothing about the techniques he applied to
achieve the effect. Personally, I suppose he may have resorted to electromag-
netic walls of the kind used to confine plasma. This, however, makes the effect
this modern magician achieves all the more impressive: when we look inside the
box through a hole in its side, we see nothing but darkness. Of course, one may
say—how could we? There is nothing to see because no light is emitted!
What is nonphenomenological in Zajonc’s procedure is that quite independ-
ently from sight he already knows what light is—electromagnetic radiation
within a specific frequency spectrum. There are good physical grounds to main-
tain that such radiation exists inside the box and that we do not see it. Phe-
nomenologically speaking, however—i.e. when we assume that light is a law of
nature in relation with the sense of sight—there is no light there at all. When we
speak of light as a phenomenon it is absurd to claim that we cannot see light
—————————
4
von. Goethe, J. W. Farbenlehre [Theory of Colours]. HA XIII, 324.
5
1994. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
8 Gernot Böhme

itself. Tujjhus, however ardently he may strive towards phenomenology, Zajonc

is evidently unable to sever himself from his physicist roots. Naturally, the
claim that light itself is invisible has a phenomenology-close, albeit weaker,
sense. We know that rays of light shining into a dark church are discernible by
the particles of dust they illuminate. It would be crassly abstract to maintain that
there is nothing but pure darkness in the space between the church window and
the floor on which the rays land, as if the church were completely sterile None-
theless, it is wrong to say that light as such cannot be seen unless it falls on ob-
jects, because we see it when we look directly at a light source without simulta-
neously seeing any objects at all. Thus, also in this weaker sense, the claim that
we cannot see light itself carries a preassumption—or, more aptly, a prejudice—
which makes it to a tautology: namely the suggestion that seeing invariably
means seeing s o m e t h i n g , or, more precisely, an object. In effect, the claim
itself becomes empty as light, of course, is not an object.
This brings us to the fundamental phenomenological fact about light: light as
a phenomenon is first and foremost brightness (Helle).6 As we shall see, there is
a multitude of other typical light phenomena—but brightness is the fundamental
one. When I wake up on a day on which I have overslept, the first thing I be-
come aware of is daylight. This awareness of brightness is primary and funda-
mental and comes before all perception of colours, forms and objects, I see
them—but I see them in brightness. The perception of brightness is our basic
experience of light.
Before I pass to chosen light phenomena, let me briefly explain the basic
character of light as brightness. Philosophers tend to describe it as t r a n s c e n -
d e n t a l . T r a n s c e n d e n t a l means as much as t h e c o n d i t i o n o f t h e
p o s s i b i l i t y o f — and when we look into the phenomenology of visual mani-
festations, we see that light as brightness plays a special role there, as every-
thing we see we see only insofar as there is brightness. Thus, brightness is a
condition of the possibility of seeing—is transcendental for seeing.
The special position of brightness in the visual sphere carries a strong poten-
tial which can be exploited artistically. Because one can say that brightness in
a sense enables manifestation (Erscheinung) as such. In other words, brightness
invariably appears with every visual manifestation. This means that light art
always has seeing as one of its themes. That light as brightness is the condition
of the possibility of seeing was already noticed by Plato in his famous Metaphor
of the Sun, where he says:

“Though vision may be in the eyes and its possessor may try to use it, and
though color be present, yet without the presence of a third thing, specially
and naturally adapted to this purpose, you are aware that vision will see
—————————
6
Böhme, G. 1998. “Licht als Atmosphäre” [Light as Atmosphere]., In: idem. Anmutungen.
Über das Atmosphärische [Impressions. About the Atmospheric], Ostfildern: edition tertium.
 Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light 9

nothing and the colours will remain invisible. What is this thing of which
you speak? he said. The thing, I said, that you call light.”7

Evidently Plato means light as brightness. Brightness itself is a phenomenon,

but one with transcendental import. It is brightness which makes the power to
see a true ability and enables visible things to be truly seen.
In our further reflections we will hold on to this fundamental observation—
although in a somewhat modified variant as light is not the only condition of
visibility: darkness is one too. Admittedly, there is an asymmetry between light
and darkness. Light is the condition of seeing as such, darkness in combination
with light is the condition of seeing s o m e t h i n g — hence of the existence of
phenomena like limitation, articulation, or definiteness.

3. LIGHT-CLEARED SPACE

The first effect of light as brightness is that it spreads over space. One can
even say that light in a sense creates space. To be able to understand this, how-
ever, we will have to specify what we mean by “space.” Of course, meant here
is not mathematical or physical space, which, if need be, is measurable in dark-
ness, but experienced space, and experienced only in specific ways. For in-
stance, we know purely acoustic space, which we can experience by means of
headphones, but such space has by nature nothing to do with light. The space
created by light is a space of distances—also distances from my person. This
kind of space is best described as illuminated space and its characteristic quality
is that it s h e d s b r i g h t n e s s . One can also experience space in darkness—
sometimes as closed–in and oppressive, at other times as an indefinite, dark
vastness in which we lose ourselves. The characteristic change brought by
brightness is that we can perceive the distances between ourselves and our sur-
roundings and are surrounded by space which allows freedom of movement.
For this reason it appears acceptable to call this type of space l i g h t - c l e a r e d
s p a c e ( gelichteter Raum)—in reference to the term c l e a r i n g (Lichtung), or
an open area in a forest, which is also space determined by distances (bounda-
ries) and the possibility of free movement. What is typical for space created by
brightness is that the possibility of moving within it is not merely the possibility
of factual movement, but also the possibility of possible movement, i.e. eye
movements: light-cleared space can be investigated with the eyes. That this is
an important spatial experience is evident in that it cannot be done with photo-
graphs. The reason is that the focus parameters of a photograph are set when the
picture is taken. Whereas in light-cleared space I am able to venture into depth,

—————————
7
Plato. 1969. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Trans. Shorey, P, vols 5 and 6.,Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press; London: ,William Heinemann Ltd., vol. 6, 507 d, e. Perseus Digital Li-
brary,Tufts University, Medford, MA: The University of Leipzig,Germany.
10 Gernot Böhme

i.e. not only move my eyes from one object to another, but also investigate the
varying degrees of depth such space offers (meine aufmeksamkeit in wech-
selnder Tiefe im raum fixieren). The possibility of perceiving spatial depth with
our eyes may be decisive for our actual awareness of being within a space.
The primary emotional experience connected with light-cleared space is
a sense of security and freedom. Of course one can also encounter danger in
light-cleared space, however the basic experience is that everything is at a dis-
tance from everything else. This distancing means safety and freedom of
movement. The sense of security felt in light-cleared space acquires cosiness
when the space itself is limited, e.g. when it contrasts with an unpenetrated area
of darkness. Seen from light-cleared space, such darkness will appear as an area
of undefined danger.
Day is unlimited light-cleared space. We see here that day also has a spatial
character: although itself limitless, it must nonetheless unfold each morning and
fold together, and disappears at night.
One may ask whether experiencing light-cleared space requires the simulta-
neous experiencing of a light source. As we have linked the light-cleared space
phenomenon to the simple experience of brightness— especially the possibility
to investigate such space with our eyes—we will have to concede that aware-
ness of a light source does n o t belong to this experience. This is vitally impor-
tant, as light is all too frequently perceived physically, i.e. as the emanation of a
light source. Even the ancient Greeks, who did not yet think physically—I spe-
cifically mean Aristotle—always referred to a source when they spoke about
light. Aristotle defined light as the parousia—or presence—of the Sun, or,
where necessary, fire. However, by virtue of our experience with light or light-
like objects, we can—or even must—make a distinction. Under “light-like ob-
jects” I mean e.g. glowing ceilings or the tinted glass windows in Gothic
churches, which are reportedly often experienced as glowing walls. One may
argue whether or not this is an experience of brightness without a source of
light, what is decisive, however, is that we are able to perceive brightness as
such, hence experiencing light-cleared space does not depend on the awareness
of a light source. The only effect here which gives food for thought involves a
certain kind of shadowless illumination of space—achieved among others by
computer lights—which in a sense “flattens” space by taking away its depth. In
effect, the space in question can acquire a surrealistic quality as we are no
longer able to assess the relative distance (depth) between objects by mere sight.
This, however, indicates that precisely what I described earlier as freedom in
light-cleared space, the possibility to survey its depth with our eyes, could have
something to do with contouring by shadow. Although then the indirect experi-
ence of a light source (through shadow) would be crucial for a full experience of
light-cleared space.
 Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light 11

4. LIGHTSPACE

Our first observation was that light created space. Also, I called the space
spanned by brightness light-cleared space. Light-cleared space is the space I am
in and I experience my presence in it in a specific way through brightness. It is,
however, also possible to view light-created space as if from outside, as a kind
of “object.” This phenomenon was actually noticed thanks to light techniques
and has been fascinatingly—though frequently annoyingly—demonstrated by
light art. Here I am mainly thinking about the artistic work of James Turrell.
Indeed, Turrell has created a variety of installations in which one can see
lightspace in the form of e.g. cuboids or pyramids suspended in darkness. Typi-
cally, necessary here is always an initiating phase in which one passes through
a “sluice” of light and enters darkened space. In the Museum of Modern Art in
Frankfurt, for instance, a floating image (or rather cuboid as it appears to have
some depth) of evenly distributed, colourful light appears on a wall after
a while. As you approach it, the wall opens onto an undefinably deep, hazily
illuminated o u t s i d e . Experiencing these lightspaces is a little like dreaming,
probably because it is so far removed from any experiencing of objects. This
might also be the source of what is annoying—and for some even frightening—
in them. These images also owe their three-dimensional effect to the viewer’s
relative proximity. Viewed from a distance, they would perhaps appear as a
mere light source. This phenomenon, which art demonstrates in its pure form,
also plays a role in other kinds of light-related experiences, where it appears in
an “unpure” variant, i.e. in combination with other phenomena. For instance, an
illuminated stage and, say, an office room viewed from a dark street are both
perceived through this ambivalence of lightspace and light source. The magical
aspect of this experience may also be connected with the fact that by placing
ourselves, so to speak, inside these lightspaces, we also experience them as
possible light-cleared spaces and thus are, in a sense, transported from the out-
side in which we are situated into an imaginary inside. Apparently this is also
what illuminated shopwindows rely on—provided there is a difference in illu-
mination between them and the street. Obviously this was why Walter Benja-
min in his Passagenwerk (Arcades Project) remarked that goods were dis-
played as if on a stage.
Holographic figures also belong to the lightspace category. Here it is possi-
ble to form freely-floating figures from light by means of interference phenom-
ena. Strangely, this effect has hardly found application in advertising, although
it is in wide use in the entertainment branch—visitors to Disney World, for ex-
ample, can admire light-formed ghosts sitting at a table. Such effects are per-
haps the best proof that light is a transcendental phenomenon, i.e. one that lets
other things manifest themselves but at the same time manifests itself. In its
self-manifestation (as we can call it now) light can also pretend to be something
else—a cuboid or pyramid (Turrell) or figures of robbers (Disney). Thus, these
12 Gernot Böhme

apparitions are no more than apparitions (as one indeed calls ghosts)—in other
words, apparitions devoid of something which appears.
Usually apparitions must still manifest themselves upon something real—at
least a projection area or a monitor. Nonetheless, from the laterna magica to the
virtual worlds conjured up on our monitors there has been no doubt whatsoever
that the images one saw were actually formed from light—hence the name
they were given: l i g h t i m a g e s . They tend to be the more fascinating, the
more the viewer is able to forget about the piece of reality they manifest them-
selves upon.

5. LIGHTS IN SPACE

The prototype of the l i g h t s i n s p a c e phenomenon is the starlit sky. Here

too one can say that light in a sense spans space—but it is a different light and
different space than in the case of brightness. The stars are lights in dark space
but they deprive the darkness of the kind of oppressiveness and indefiniteness
that makes one lose oneself. However, they do not constitute space through
distance (Abstandsraum), as was the case with brightness. The stars do not al-
low assessments of distance but they give space form, organising it into direc-
tions. This also ensures some security and orientation in space—as we know,
precisely this kind of security enables navigation. Nonetheless, this star-
organised space remains in itself dark, which means that the lights in this space
cannot really be perceived as a light source—even though, as we may note by
the way, they provide the best proof that light can be seen. In order to be per-
ceived as a light source, they would have to illuminate something. In fact, of
course, they are natural light sources and actually do illuminate the night to
some degree. This illumination is largely unnoticeable and not really perceived
to come from the stars—quite differently than in the case of moonlight. The
lights in space phenomenon is best defined precisely by this property: lights in
space are perceived as points of light but not light sources, although that is what
they really are. In nature this kind of light cannot always be encountered in pure
form. All that is needed is unclear vision or fog for the stars to acquire radiating
halos. The lights in space phenomenon is very pleasant to observe on glow
worms, where one also has the effect of movement, especially irregular, floating
movement. This clearly shows what one already feels when one looks at the
stars—namely that lights in space are perceived as something that is independ-
ent, something with a life of its own. This may be an effect of b o d i l y c o m -
m u n i c a t i o n 8 or identification, in any case, an inclination to transport oneself
to the location of light in space and look down at our world from there.

—————————
8
It was Hermann Schmitz who discovered the importance of bodily communication for per-
ception. Cf. his System der Philosophie [System of Philosophy]. 1978, vol. III, part 5, “Die
Wahrnehmung” [Perception], § 242. Bonn: Bouvier.
 Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light 13

The lights in space phenomenon has meanwhile found application in interior

design, chiefly because it enables space to be illuminated without conspicuous
light sources. It is also used in decoration, illumination and advertising. In terms
of atmosphere such use of artificial light always brings associations with a
starry sky. Here, however, we must mention another classical phenomenon of
the l i g h t s i n s p a c e genre—firework displays.
Theodor Adorno called firework shows a fundamental type of ephemeral
art.9 Fireworks are the fire of transience. Differently from the stars and glow
worms, at play here are flaring up and extinguishment, and, of course, the col-
ours and splendour of the bursting fire.
Fibre optics has made the l i g h t s i n s p a c e phenomenon easily available.
This technology promises a multitude of further light phenomena which will
considerably expand the mentioned spectrum of starlit sky, glow worms and
fireworks. The beginnings of this process can be traced to the soil from which
so many aesthetic innovations have grown—the fairground.

6. THINGS IN LIGHT

I have so far dealt with three main light phenomena: light-cleared space,
lightspace and lights in space—without going into the relation between light
and things. I held this for necessary as according to traditional prejudice light’s
closest relation is with body. Accompanying this prejudice is another one,
namely that light as such is invisible. The conviction that light has an intrinsic
relation to body is an ancient prejudice, and still obstructive today. For instance,
the Pythagoreans, apparently unable to believe in the independent existence of
coloured light, defined colour as the surface of bodies.10 Even Goethe, the mas-
ter of colour phenomenology, makes light dependent on body in a well-known
passage in Faust, where Mephistopheles says:

“I’m part of the part, that once was—everything,

Part of the darkness, from which Light, issuing,
Proud Light, emergent, disputed the highest place
With its mother Night, the bounds of Space,
And yet won nothing, however hard it tried,
Still stuck to Bodily Things, and so denied.
It flows from bodies, which it beautifies,
And bodies block its way:
I hope the day’s not far away

—————————
9
Adorno, T. W.1985 (7th edition). Ästhetische Theorie [Aesthetic Theory]. Frankfurt/M.:
Suhrkamp, 125 f.
10
As in Aristotle, De sensu et sensibilibus, 3, 439a, 30 ff.
14 Gernot Böhme

When it, along with all these bodies, dies.”11

Let us, who are free from such prejudice, now turn to the relation of light to
things.
Things are what actually lets us see that light is a transcendental phenome-
non, i.e. an apparition that enables apparition: things appear in light. This phe-
nomenon was considered so momentous in the dawn of our European culture,
i.e. in ancient Greece, that it became a paradigm of apparition. Of course, things
also exist without light and can manifest themselves by, say, sound or aroma.
Plato, however, basically understood the coming into being (Werden) of some-
thing as appearance in light, emergence from indefiniteness and acquisition of
contour and conciseness (Prägnanz). For Plato the essence of things were the
ideas they expressed, and i d e a initially referred to look, or appearance. Thus
the existence of things was perceived as their appearance in light.
If things appear in light, then of course light also appears upon them. This is
exactly what we trivially describe as s e e i n g l i g h t . Here we come to what I
mentioned earlier—that darkness also conditions the appearance of things. The
appearance of things in light is, in fact, emergence from darkness. And it re-
mains that appearance only as long as darkness is not fully extinguished. Things
have contour, depth and conciseness in light only in combination with darkness.
I have already remarked that shadowlessly illuminated space looks flat, and the
things in it lose contour. This is something to consider if, by means of light, we
want to safeguard the dignity and import of things and the very fact of their
existence, instead of annihilating them. This may be very important for advertis-
ing and product presentations, which are a feast of things in which the focus is
not on eternal values but on things as events, or their appearance.

7. LIGHT UPON THINGS

This brings me from the appearance of things in light to light upon things.
Light interplays with things, whereby it transforms and proceeds forth from
things to confront us in a veritably endless diversity of distinguishable phenom-
ena. I will bypass colour, as it has actually been sufficiently dealt with by
Goethe’s colours theory. Besides colour, though, there are phenomena like radi-
ance, fibrillation, mattness, glow, fluorescence, and many, many more. As we
know, these appearance forms of light depend on the material it encounters and
the material’s surface properties. Consequently, the tendency is to base descrip-
tions of such phenomena on these causes to put them into some kind of order,
while the phenomenologically correct thing to do would be to define glow ,matt

—————————
11
von Goethe, J. W. 2003. Faust, Part I (1349–1358).Transl. Kline, A.S. In: http://www.
poetryintranslation.com/klineasfaust.htm)
 Light and Space. On the Phenomenology of Light 15

glow etc. against each other. I will attempt this with the phenomena of glow
(Glanz) and matt glow (matter Schimmer).
Characteristically, both terms are used in reference to light as such, not just
surfaces. For example, we speak about bright lights on a Christmas tree or the
matt glow of the stars. Such usage shows that also in the case of things, e.g.
when we speak about glowing or mattly glowing surfaces—we in a sense ex-
press that we see l i g h t when we look at their surface. We have said that the
appearance of things is in a sense always accompanied by the appearance of
light, however in such cases light usually appears implicitly, i.e. we see things
clearly in brightness without noticing the light upon them. In the case of glow
and matt glow, however, light appears on things explicitly. Glow even make
things disappear behind it, while matt glow rather makes them hazy and shape-
less. On the other hand glow, if not too strong, adds contour to things, the co-
appearance of light making their own appearance noticeable. This is why glow
upon things in a way elevates them in their dignity, lending them splendour and
importance. Matt glow, on the other hand, rather effectuates reticence—
although of course, matt glow being in a sense the beginning of glow, this is a
noble reticence, an understatement. It is by no means my intention to describe
these qualities of light anthropomorphically, however, the terminology used
here comes to mind as well-suited to describe the impressions things convey
thanks to the light that plays upon them.
And this is the decisive statement: the light that falls upon things is essen-
tially responsible for the impression they create. When things appear in light,
their appearance may at first seem quite matter-of-fact and characterless. It is
the play of light upon them that lends it character and allows things to impress
us. This type of light phenomenon is exceptionally important. One can even say
that the use of materials in design, cosmetics or architecture is to a considerable
degree determined by the luminous qualities of surfaces. The art of refining
surfaces has sought such qualities ever since the ancient Egyptians. Today we
are quite right to speak about a new materiality era. The choice of materials
plays an extraordinarily important role in design and architecture, however, we
should not forget that this is primarily because of surfaces, whose aesthetic im-
port basically lies in their relation with light.

8. ILLUMINATION (BELEUCHTUNG)

I divided the above-discussed light phenomena into two large groups accord-
ing to the relation of light to space and the relation of light to things. Finally,
I want to address a type of light phenomenon which in a way connects both
groups—so-called illumination. I do not mean illumination in the technical,
practical sense as in choosing how to light up a bathroom. By illumination
I mean a light phenomenon in the sense of, say, the e v e n i n g l i g h t , some-
thing like the light that falls on a stage to tone—or, still better, t u n e it. Classi-
 16 Gernot Böhme

cal examples of this kind of illumination are sunrise and sunset, but we also
have festive illumination, dimmed illumination, cheerful illumination, oppres-
sive illumination, etc. Here i l l u m i n a t i o n means a light phenomenon in
which light is a basic element of atmosphere. If atmosphere is to develop in a
concrete space or a location which addresses us a certain way, the illumination
of the space or location is of fundamental importance. It is the colours of light,
its distribution, intensity, concentration—or, as the case may be, its diffusiv-
ity—that lend a certain atmosphere to space or an environment. There is no
better way to study this than in the praxis of scenography. The atmosphere, the
mood upon a stage depends to an essential degree on illumination.
As I remarked, the illumination phenomenon in a way combines the earlier
two light phenomenon groups, namely light and space and light upon things. It
is the brightness which more or less fills a space or plays upon things, and both
combined constitute the phenomenon of illumination.
Segregated by how they affect atmosphere, light phenomena also possess
their own spectrum—from those related to weather and the seasons (e.g. autumn
light, twilight), through synaesthetical variants like cold or radiant illumination
to intentional presentations of a social character, like festive illumination.
Common for this entire spectrum of light phenomena is that they clearly show
the atmospheric aspects of light, or our emotional involvement t h r o u g h light.
Light as atmosphere lends an emotive character to things, locations and envi-
ronments which appear in a certain kind of illumination. We feel addressed,
moved—in a sense tuned by illumination.
Brightness lets us see and insofar is of extraordinary and constitutive impor-
tance to us as seeing creatures. One could ask, however, if light as i l l u m i n a -
t i o n is not of even greater import, as it allows us to perceive reality i n
a c e r t a i n w a y and by this strengthens our emotional involvement in the
world.

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