Light and dark: conceptual map

A lamp that mimics the moon

The 'Eclipse lamp' by Vico Magistretti for Artemide (Milano), 1967

Two years before man's first landing on the moon, Vico Magistretti designs for Artemide the 'Eclipse lamp', an icon of Sixties Design and the Space Age.

The lamp has two sphere shades, the inner one rotable, so one can have different lights like the changing ones from the moon.

Translucent wood

This material looks like any other piece of wood until you shine light through it, at which point you discover that, unlike any other wood product, it is translucent.

Modern innovative materials usually give to a traditional material (such as wood or concrete) some unespected features (brightness, lightness) that traditionally belong to another one.

Clic here to see the patent.

Measuring time by the Sun

For thousands of years, people used sundials to tell the time. The first sundials were used more than 3,500 years ago in Egypt.
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun.
In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from a thin rod or a sharp, straight edge, onto a flat surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day.
As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow-edge progressively aligns with different hour-lines on the plate.

Clic here to see a patent of a modern adjustable sundial.



How to make a sundial on your own

Light breaks the darkness

Tadao Ando: Church of the Light

Church of the light (sometimes called "Church with Light") is the Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church's main chapel. It was built in 1989, in the city of Ibaraki, Osaka, and it is one of the most famous design of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The Church of the Light consists of three 5.9m concrete cubes (5.9m wide x 17.7m long x 5.9m high) penetrated by a wall angled at 15°, dividing the cube into the chapel and the entrance area. One indirectly enters the church by slipping between the two volumes, one that contains the Sunday school and the other that contains the worship hall. The benches, along with the floor boards, are made of re-purposed scaffolding used in the construction. A cruciform is cut into the concrete behind the altar, and lit during the morning (as it is facing east).

The origin of light in Inuit mythology

Tulugaak from an illustration by Agnes Nanogak, Holman island, 1983

In Inuit mythology, Tulugaak was the creator of light. The Inuit are very tied to the past, trying to explain to some extent the existence of some creatures, such as the onset of light.

In the early times, there was only darkness; there was no light at all. At the edge of the sea a woman lived with her father. One time she went out to get some water. As she was scraping the snow, she saw a feather floating toward her. She opened her mouth and the feather floated in and she swallowed it. From that time she was pregnant.
Then she had a baby. It's mouth was a raven's bill. The woman tried hard to find toys for her child. In her father's house was hanging a bladder that was blown up. Now the baby, whose name was tulugaak (Raven), pointed at it and cried for it. The woman took the bladder down from the wall and let the baby play with it. But in playing with it, he broke it. Immediately, it began to get light. Now there was light in the world, and darkness, too.

Interactive light wall

In 2009 Philips presented Lumiblade®, an OLED installation, a luminescent wall that reacts directly to passers-by, creating mirrored reflections of their ‘shadows’ amid the light.
This installation is both functional and highly experiential, it invites to “play” with this new technology and experience it as much more than a light only: a softly glowing mirror, an interactive tool, a very aesthetic light source.

Clic here to see the OLED device patent by Philips.

Transparent and light transmitting concrete

The transparent concrete Litracon® is a combination of optical fibres and fine concrete.
It was developed by Hungarian architect Áron Losonczi since 2001 and it can be produced as prefabricated building blocks.

Clic here to view patent images.

Homesick light

静夜思 "Night Thoughts"
作者：李白 Author: Li Bai

床前明月光 A bed, I see a silver light,
疑是地上霜 I wonder if it's frost aground.
举头望明月 Looking up, I find the moon bright;
低头思故乡 Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned.

"Night Thoughts" is a famous Chinese poetry by Li Bai.
The poetry talks about the emotion of homesickness: the light from the moon makes the author feeling lonely in a strange place.

A lightful ship billowing in the sky

Notre Dame du Haut: exterior and interior views

The Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France, is a pilgrimage chapel, designed by
Le Corbusier in 1954.
It stands, all in concrete, above the town on the top of a wooded hill, white and reflective, visible from miles away, with its aerodynamic tower, its “natural” shapes and wave-curved roof cutting into the sky beyond.
Above the plain altar, the east wall is punctuated by several pinhole-windows and by a single substantial window with the Madonna and Child in silhouette. In the interior, the spaces left between the wall and roof, as well as asymmetric light from the wall openings serve to further reinforce the sacral nature of the space and buttress the relationship of the building with its surroundings.

A war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness

"The Last Judgement" by Viktor Vasnetsov

The "War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness" is a manual for military organization and strategy that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (a collection of 972 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible). These scrolls contain an apocalyptic prophecy of a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness.

The war is first described as an attack by the Sons of Light against those who violate the divine covenant. In the end, all of Darkness is to be destroyed and Light will live in peace for all eternity.

Stamps

A 2010 stamp showing a lightbulb

The theme of "light" occurres in postage stamps mainly related to lamps and light sources.

A strange thing called 'lightbulb'

In this scene from "Wall-E", a computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, Wall-E shows to Eve his favourite things, especially a lightbulb. In her hand the lightbulb lights up.

Light collage

"Peaceable Kingdom" by Austine Wood Comarow

Austine Wood Comarow started working in her original polarized light art medium in 1967.
She creates interactive and kinetic or morphing figurative images using a combination of polarized filters and special birefringent materials. When displayed in special kinetic light boxes they change in ways invocative of passing time: a sun setting, seasons change, people age.
The remarkable art requires cutting thousands of tiny pieces of clear cellulose and other optically active materials and laminating them onto a clear matrix such as acrylic or glass (polarized light collage). The resulting images can be displayed in motorized light boxes so they continually change, or in an interactive format so the viewer activates the image with a polarizing viewer.

Talking about the weather...

The weather project by Olafur Eliasson was installed at the London's Tate Modern in 2003 as part of the popular Unilever series. The installation filled the open space of the gallery's Turbine Hall.

This hugely popular exhibit explored that most British of obsessions, the weather. What looks like a complete Sun is actually only half a circle, reflected by a mirror running the entire length of the high ceiling.
The light Eliasson's created is really interesting: with monochromatic yellow light eliminating all colour and spurts of 'mist' adding to the atmosphere, the building was transformed into an ethereal and disconcerting beauty.
Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape. (From Tate Modern: About the installation)

Light as a 'medical instrument'

A view of the inner space: the corridor and the dining hall

Alvar Aalto's starting point for the design of the Paimio sanatorium in Southwest Finland, was to make the building itself a contributor to the healing process. He liked to call the building a "medical instrument".
For instance, light was considered a vehicle of positive feelings and particular attention was paid to the design of the inside, especially the patient bedrooms.
Aalto was able to bring natural light into the rooms and give the patients the feeling that they were in control of the space.

Also the colour scheme of the patients' rooms was related to light. Aalto had his own ideas about the ceilings of the patients' rooms, for example. "The ceiling of the room should be the colour of the sky", and because the ceiling was painted in darker tones, the lighting had to be arranged so that the part of the ceiling which reflected the light had to be painted in lighter tones.
Another example is the dining hall, that is designed with an eye on the natural lighting.

On the window side there is a double-height space, so that natural light filters into the farthest corner of the room and there are sun blinds outside to prevent glare.

Lighting without windows

Interior of the Pantheon, with ray of light from the center Oculus

On entering the door of the Pantheon (an Ancient Rome buiding), the effect you feel is meant to be overwhelming.

You suddenly find yourself in this huge empty space which causes vertigo and makes you feel tiny. This is how you were supposed to feel in front of the gods and anyone going in today can have the same sensation as the Romans did almost 2000 years ago.
At the centre of the dome's apex, there is a 9 meter diameter hole, the Oculus.
Since the Pantheon has no windows, the Oculus and the entry door are the only sources of light in the interior: the only light penetrates from above streaming down like a river of inner light. Towards midday, the rays coming through the Oculus are particularly intense.
The Oculus was also to let the smoke from sacred fires out. When it rains, it also rains in the Pantheon; the floor is slightly convex so the water flows away thanks to an effective drainage system.

A strange flickering light

The Valkyrior are warlike virgins, mounted upon horses and armed with helmets and spears. [...] When they ride forth on their errand, their armour sheds a strange flickering light, which flashes up over the northern skies, making what men call the "aurora borealis", or "Northern Lights".

("Bulfinch's Mythology", by Thomas Bulfinch, 1855)

Polar Auroras, also known as northern and southern (polar) lights, are natural light displays in the sky, particularly in the polar regions, and usually observed at night.
Typically the aurora appears either as a diffuse glow or as "curtains" that approximately extend in the east-west direction. At some times, they form "quiet arcs"; at others ("active aurora"), they evolve and change constantly.

A lightful day

Saint Lucy's day concert (Globen Luciakonsert)

At dawn on 13th December in Sweden thousands of young girls, dressed in white gowns, holding a lit candle and with a crown of electric candles on a wreath on their heads, bring light to the darkness of Swedish winter.

This is the "Lucia Festival", a 400 year-old tradition, played out in churches, schools, hospitals and workplaces around the country. Saint Lucy's day is so important that Christmas would not be Christmas in Scandinavia without it.

A useful light ball

A scientist setting up a lamp for testing in the 2m integrating sphere

The integrating sphere is used to quickly measure the total light output (luminous flux) of a lamp. It is used for a variety of optical, photometric or radiometric measurements.

The lamp being tested is placed in the center of the integrating sphere. At one side of the sphere is a light meter which measures the light output of the lamp. Between the lamp and the light meter there is a baffle to prevent the meter from seeing any direct light from the lamp.

The inside of the sphere (including the baffle) is coated with a very white paint that reflects all wavelengths equally. This allows to get very accurate measurements. The light from the lamp bounces around the sphere until it reaches the light meter.

Fight the dark side

Advertising campaign "Atma Light (Fight the dark side)"

Light can be the way to fight the dark side, giving people hope and courage.

In this way, the dark inside tehir hearts will be broken up.

Measuring light features

The CIE chromaticity diagram

There are many optical instruments used to analyze the properties of light or optical materials.

They include:
- Autocollimator which is used to measure angular deflections;
- Densitometer for measuring the degree of darkness (the optical density) of a reflecting surface;
- Interferometer for measuring the interference properties of light waves;
- Light meter for measuring the amount of light;
- Photometer for measuring light intensity;
- Polarimeter for measuring dispersion or rotation of polarized light;
- Reflectometer for measuring the reflectivity of a surface or object;
- Refractometer for measuring refractive index of various materials, invented by Ernst Abbe;
- Spectrometer or Monochromator for generating or measuring a portion of the optical spectrum;
- Vertometer which is used to determine refractive power of lenses such as glasses and contact lenses.

Fear of the dark

I am the man who walks alone

And when I'm walking a dark road
At night or strolling through the park

When the light begins to change
I sometimes feel a little strange
A little anxious when it's dark

Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have constant fear that something's

always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone's
always there

Fear Of The Dark is the title track of 1992 album by Iron Maiden, like most of their songs, bassist Steve Harris, was released as a single in the live version taken from A Real Live One and recorded during their concert in Helsinki on August 27, 1992. It 'was the twenty-sixth single released by the band and reached the fifth of the UK charts (remember that the song is metal).

The cosmos according Philolaus

Philolaus, fifth century A.C physician and philosopher

Philolaus had the great merit of disseminating the concepts and principles of the philosophical Pythagorean doctrine.

For Philolaus there are four elements: fire, water, ground and air, changing and moving through it all. These elements constitute the Cosmos (animated, thinking, spherical), whose center is the earth (spherical, inhabited).
The four elements are equal in the cosmos:

- Light / dark
- Hot / cold
- Dry / Wet

When the heat is greater than the cold summer has, when the heat is less than the cold winter has. When hot and cold does not prevail on each other you have the spring, leading saute and autumn, which brings disease.

There's a line between light and dark

Carrie Newcomer (born May 25, 1958) is an American singer and songwriter. In the album "Geography of light" (2008), she explores the impalpable experiences we have in our lives. Like the nature of light, these experiences can't be perceived by the sense of touch.

A lot of the "Geography of Light" is about trying to put into language and music all those things we experience and recognize, that have no language. I mean, how many words do we have to try to describe the quality of light? Glow, beam, shimmer, radiate…. It’s about navigating that shadow and light in our lives, and all those gray spaces in between. There aren’t any easy answers – but there’s a lot of good questions. (From a Carrie Newcomer's interview about her album).

The song "A Map of Shadows" originated as an essay describing an experience of watching the night become morning:
Well well well - it's so hard to tell .
There's a line between light and dark,
Between heaven and hell.
Well well well - it's not easy to see.
What's out there on my left or right,
Or what's right in front of me.

"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all"

There are more than 200 references to the word 'light' in the Bible.

Light was the first of God's creations, according to the book of Genesis.

  And God said, let there be light, and there was light. (Old Testament, Genesis, i,3.)
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (Old Testament, Genesis, i,4.)
  To the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like

  darkness. (Job 10.22.)
  What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? (Job 38.19.)

Light was identified throughout the New Testament with the nature of God, himself.

  The word is light that the darkness cannot extinguish, and this light illuminates every

  man [...] We are the children of light, who have put aside the world of darkness.

A god between life and death

The mythological Trinity or Triad: Osiris, Horus and Isis

In Egyptian mythology there are many legends about the relationship between life and death, often expressed in a struggle between light and dark.
In the myth of Osiris and Isis, as a life-death-rebirth deity, Horus/Osiris (life/death) became a reflection of the annual cycle of crop harvesting as well as reflecting people's desires for a successful afterlife, and so the legend became extremely important, outstripping all others.

The myth concerns the death of Osiris, the god of the Afterlife and the dead, the travel of his sister-wife Isis searching his body and the birth of Horus, the ancient Egyptian's national patron god.

In the beginning it was dark and cold

Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion NGC 5195

The history of light coincides with the beginning of life, since without light, there would be no life.
In cosmogony, the nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model explaining the formation and evolution of the Solar System. The nebular hypothesis was first proposed in 1734 by Emanuel Swedenborg an developed in 1755 by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
About 4 billion years ago, soon after the Sun was formed, the Earth and other planets were formed from violent explosions and spinoffs from the process that created the Sun. Gradually oceans appeared and sunlight and water gave birth to life (3 Billion BC), eventually, intelligent life (2 Billion BC).

Alphabet

Ambiance 环境（Huánjìng）

Bulb 灯泡（Dēngpào）

Color 洞穴/颜色（Yánsè）

Diaphragm 膈 （Gé）

Eye 眼睛（Yǎnjīng）

Firefly 萤火虫（Yínghuǒchóng）

Glass 玻璃（Bōlí）

Hole 孔（Kǒng）

Idea 想法（Xiǎngfǎ)


Jellyfish 水母（Shuǐmǔ）

Kryptonite 氪石（Kè shí）


Lighthouse 灯塔（Dēngtǎ）

Moon 月亮（Yuèliàng）

North Pole 北极（Běijí）

Opal 蛋白石（Dànbáishí）

Paradise 天堂（Tiāntáng）

Quarz 石英（Shíyīng）

Rainbow 彩虹（Cǎihóng）

Sundial 晷（Guǐ）

Torch 火炬（Huǒjù）

Uva-ray 乌瓦光（Wū wǎ guāng）

Video-projector 投影机（Tóuyǐng jī）

Wax candle 蜡烛（Làzhú）

X-ray X射线（X shèxiàn）


Yin-Yang 阴阳（Yīnyáng）


Zircon 锆石（Gào shí）

Not everything is what it seems

Finding Nemo is a 2003 American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin, who along with a regal tangcalled Dory, searches for his son Nemo. Along the way Marlin learns to take risks and to let Nemo take care of himself.

During their adventure searching Nemo, Marlin and Dory are involved in a struggle with an anglerfish in the deep sea. This scene is very interesting because light, usually associated with positive and reassuring situations, in this case reveals a terrible and scaring one.

If I shine, all it's fine

In "Beauty and the Beast" (1991 animation film),

Lumière is an important secondary supporting character

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It centers around the love between a prince who is transformed into a beast and the beautiful young woman whom he imprisons in his castle.

During the film, many characters appear and Lumière is an important one.

Because of the curse placed by the Enchantress, he was transformed into a candelabra.

His three candles are lighted in positive situations but unlighted in negative ones. 

Eureka!

Edi is the Gyro Gearloose's little helper.

His name stays for 'Edison', the inventor of lightbulb

Gyro Gearloose is an inventor, a fictional character, an anthropomorphic chicken created by Carl Barks for the Walt Disney Company. He is part of the Scrooge McDuck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge and anyone who is associated with them.

Edi, called Little Helper in English, is a small, humanoid robot constructed from pieces of metal and a lightbulb, which serves as his head. He acts as the assistant to Gyro.

In the Donald Duck comics, he is often shown as an inventor himself, sometimes copying Gyro's inventions.

Edi never speaks, but occasionally uses thought bubbles. He enjoys helping Gyro clean up the unusual consequences of his inventions.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Light art quotes

Quotations about light often use metaphores in which light symbolizes knowledge to overcome difficult dark situations. 
Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?
(Maurice Freehill)

Never look back!

Federico Cervelli (1625 – 1700),  "Orfeo ed Euridice"
Querini-Stampalia Foundation, Venice (Italy)

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice, told by Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil and Ovid, is a clear example of light as life and dark as death.

Orpheus dared more than any other man ever dared for his love and he tooks the fearsome journey to the underworld to bring Eurydice to light. The "Gods who rule the dark and silent world" summoned Eurydice and gave her to him, but upon one condition: that he would not look back at her as she followed him, until they had reached the upper world...

Aten the great Sun god

The pharaoh Ekhnaton and his family worshipping Aten

In the history of religions and philosophy, light is the simbol of positivity, in two different meanings: light as principle of life and knowledge.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, the sun is the light source. The pharaoh Ekhnaton places traditional gods under that of Aten (or Ra), the sun god.

The Great Hymn to the Aten suggests that Ekhnaton considers Aten as the only god and creator of the universe:

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!

They are hidden from the face (of man).

O sole god, like whom there is no other!

Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,

Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,

Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,

And what is on high, flying with its wings.

[...]

Life depends on a beam of light

'I Am Legend' is a 2007 post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Francis Lawrence

In September 2012, after a lethal worldwide epidemic, Robert Neville (Will Smith) is left as the last healthy human in New York City.

Only 12 million people were naturally immune to the virus. The rest degenerated into bald, pale, aggressive beings referred to as 'Darkseekers', who hunted down the immune humans as prey. The 'Darkseekers' are so-called for hiding in buildings and dark places during the day due to a painful intolerance to UV radiation.

In this scene, the protagonist and his dog can escape from the 'Darkseekers' thanks to a beam of light that is like a barrier between them and the others.
But it's the sunset and the beam of light is getting smaller...

Lady in the dark

Our lady of the hospital

"Our lady of the hospital", by Harrison Millard (1830-1895), it's a song from American Civil War music (1861-1865).

The lady sitting in the dark between the hospital tents, is illuminated by the light of a lamp. The dark represents the sad days of the Civil War, the light and the lady simbolize the pity for the soldiers.

  She sits in our long dark ward
  By the light of a shaded lamp,
  No sound but the cry of relieving guard
  And the sentinels’ heavy tramp

  [...]

"Light am I: ah, that I were night!"

"The night song", from "Thus spoke Zarathustra", written by Friedrich Nietzsche (1883-1885), talks about the meaning of life trought the opposition between light and dark, but in this poetry, dark means life and light means death.

"Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light!

Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light!

And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms aloft!--and would rejoice in the gifts of your light".