Shift Happens – Professional Lighting Design Convention – Paris 1–4 november

SHARING LIGHT – URBANITY 4.0 – Christiaan Weiler architect ir. MSc.

INTRODUCTION

In this presentation we will review the art of illumination shifting focus from the lighting object to the lighting service and bring an abundance of adjacent ‘phenomena’ in perspective. This concerns all the industry partners and clients, but more specifically the end-users and their use-conditions the products aim to serve. Looking shortly into macro-shifts in society will give insight into the dynamics of the current urban context and market. Focussing on cultural and technical aspects of illumination, and most important the opportunities for convergence of the two, some cases will be illustrated that can pinpoint to situations of emergent innovation for lighting technique and how it can acquire meaning for the urban denizen.

FRAGMENTATION

Human culture has evolved through numerous technological revolutions, from the mastery of fire (i.e. light) to the industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, culminating in the recently coined fourth industrial revolution, and, in the case of this conference, ‘urban life 4.0'. Much liberty and welfare has been spread, but the reverse side to economic development has become uncomfortably clear. George Kell of UN’s Global Compact described the new agenda at Davos, saying ‘… We must embrace sustainability and tackle … global warming, rising inequalities, social unrest and violence and a fragmenting world order with low trust in governments and business…’. For this new agenda the lighting industry also has to chip in and adjust it’s processes and objectives. This presentation will show how cities, and more specifically night-scapes and illuminated interiors, are the places where the friction of fragments become evident, but also how light has the potential to be an immatieral space and community enhancer. Articifial light plays a fundamental role in the history and future of the private and public realm. In this respect, to consider urban evolution is inevitable for prospecting the evolution of artificial light.

CONVERGENCE

The Modernist functional city, as a product of post-war efficiency thinking, has proven not to be that perfect replicable urban end state, but rather a composition of vulnerable mono-cultures, of a disneyfied downtown, congested infrastructures and quiet outskirts. Vast surfaces of office space, parking-lots, metro-systems, shopping-malls and suburban streets must now not only be renovated, they must be remixed, repurposed and upcycled to become better than they were. The presentation will elaborate how the aforementioned fragmented world order actually offers opportunities to develop new inclusive and contextual lighting value propositions. The convergence of opportunities is already taking spontaneous shape. A relatively new movement of civil urban initiatives is occupying urban spaces in very imaginative ways, in response to uncharted user-needs and with simple techniques. This convergence should at least be regarded in a frame with two major components : culture (low-tech) and technology (hi-tech), and the new sense they can make.

ADAPTIVE DEVELOPMENT

A key word describing both technological and cultural fragmentation is ‘decentralization’ : the fourth industrial revolution builds on the decentralized internet to distribute automation and improve efficiency. The Occupy Wall Street coordinators relied heavily on an internet collective decision making application called Loomio, developped by activists and coders. Blockchain, Bitcoin, P2P consumption, carsharing, coworking and pop-up stores are decentralized services and are highly reactive to changing conditions. This is where the fragments converge, where end-users are in immediate touch with producers, and innovation can be a collective multistakeholder process. This is where light rediscovers a meaningful role, driven by user expression rather than technological exploration.

MEANINGFUL PROTOTYPING

As was clarified by Hubert Reeves and Edgar Morin, during the 2015 and 2016 Ocean Climax Festival in Bordeaux, it is not the planet we need to save because it will survive. What we must save is our human culture. Articifial light (fire) was one of the major drivers of cultural evolution emerging from natural evolution, and symbolizes this transition in its many forms. The presentation will show that that, as society continues to evolve, new ceremonies of transition are emerging, in technically enhanced festivals and grassroots initiatives. Decentralized citizen initiatives have proven to repurpose and upcycle urban elements and the living conditions they offer. They innovate the lighting service while focussing on service, often in ephemeral event prototypes. Some specific cases will be elaborated to illustrate the informal innovations of urban events, such as the Christchurch (NZ) post earth quake festival for ephemeral architecture, the hedonist Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert (USA), the ecological Ocean Climax Festival (FR) and some DIY approaches to the lighting service. These manifestations present opportunities to participate as active partners in collaborative design, not just in financial contribution, so as to find development in meaningful social protoyping.