Research lines

The general goal of the research project Reflecting Light is to create and/or expand a living and ever changing discursive practice around light, light dramaturgy and lighting design.

At the start of this research project in October 2021 we are setting out 5 general research lines to focus our attention on:

1. How to share a practice? This question is a very general one, however also a very essential one when it comes to lighting design. Lighting designers tend to work alone. They hardly ever share methodologies and struggles amongst each other and in the communication with performers and performances makers there is often a lack of a shared language or focus. Part of this question will be tackled in interactions with students at KASK School of Arts in Ghent (Belgium) and in other institutions. Can we create different sets of exercises that can open up the awareness about the possibilities of light, what light is and what it does?
2. When does a tool become an instrument? - the crisis of 'production'. Towards a new materialism - What is the impact of industry on the 'métier'? How comes that designing the tools - and new legislations - influences creative desiging? And what is our reaction: how can we keep challenging the instruments - and how to formulate - in depth - arguments to counter these tendencies.
3. The performativity of light and Non-human agency Researching both personal praxis - resonating with theories of post-human dramaturgy.
4. A historic research on light vs scenography - and how lightingdesign evokes new ways to implement scenography to make light 'interesting'. Both as a theorectical - archives - and a formal, practical research on stage. (inversed: How can light be a deceiver?)
5. The dramaturgy of light vs lighting design - What are we speaking about? This research line is driven by the question: What are we speaking about when we speak about light. Light is not a well defined, singular entity but an interconnected multiplicity within a situation. When we speak about light, are we speaking about what light is physically (light waves) and how light behaves or are we speaking about what the light makes visible and how? Are we speaking about light as a creator of space or as a creator of different temporalities within a performance? Are we speaking about colour, texture, athmosphere, energy, intimacy or clarity, about reflection, about the breaking of light? Or are we speaking about light sources? All of this aspects, and many more, can be part of what we mean when we speak about light.