From Candle Light to Contemporary Lighting Systems: How Lighting Technology Shapes Scenographic Practices

Abstract

From Candle Light to Contemporary Lighting Systems: How Lighting Technology Shapes Scenographic PracticesIn this article, I discuss the in uence of stage lighting on the processes of scenic design and the functioning of performance space. ere has been a huge advance in lighting technology with regard to their accessibility, usability, luminosity and costs during the past decades. Light can no longer be thought of as a necessity that can just be added to the performance. It has become one of its basic visual elements, directing and focusing the spectators gaze. e rhythm of changing lighting cues create a visual dramaturgy, which has turned visual design from solid constructrions to a score of temporal events. Today you seldom see a performance without any use of projections or digital videos. I begin with a quick historical survey on the adaptation of electric light in order to exemplify the artistic signi cance of technological innovations. I move on to a more philosophical conversation about the metaphorical connotations of light as a basic component of the visual mise-en-scène. en I return to the practices of contemporary theatre making and examine the contributions of the latest projection technology. I suggest that stage lighting has developed from being a technical tool making the scenes visible into a sovereign artistic agency creating images on its own terms. Today's intermedial scenography can be seen as a parallel to the contemporary experience of our spatio-visual environment in everyday life, echoing the changes that happen in our ways of perceiving and conceptualizing the world.