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PASW Regional Newsletter: Autumn 2007

Regional Network Meeting Report

‘The art of illumination – what role do artists play in lighting our public realm?’,

Weston super Mare 1st May 2007

Introduction

Maggie Bolt welcomed people to the meeting and to Weston.She touched on the changes to the Network meetings that were being implemented and invited feedback.Maggie went on to talk about the day’s topic and how it was a controversial subject given the issues of global warming and light pollution. That being said, lighting is however something that we rely on in our daily lives, with its many functions clearly evident. With the speakers introduced, Maggie passed over to the meeting’s Chairperson, Andrew Kelly.

Andrew said that the subject of lighting had been raised in many previous regional network meetings but never in detail; this event therefore, would provide an opportunity to explore the subject in greater depth. He urged people to participate in the meeting and to join in on the plenary session at the end of the day.

Andrew welcomed the first speaker of the day, journalist and writer, Oliver Bennett. The following is a summary of Oliver’s keynote address.

Read Oliver's paper in full.

Listen to the audio recording of the meeting.

Oliver Bennett, journalist and writer

In recent years, we have witnessed a flourishing of light in the public sphere. Architectural lighting has become commonplace in city centres. Landmark buildings such as churches are routinely lit at night. Lighting created by artists and designers is used by many local authorities in conjunction with public arts bodies to add value, drama and interest. From York Minster to Tyneside to Weston super Mare, programmes of creative lighting have unveiled a new and exciting public art agenda.

It is easy to see why light has become so popular. Much of the new lighting is dramatic and site-specific, enhancing the onlooker's experience and turning environment into event. From ex-industrial warehouses to waterside landscapes, lighting makes the point that an area is valued: lighting, therefore, has become an essential visual cue of the regeneration process. What is more, lighting programmes are often temporary and reversible, making it easier to work with historic structures and planning requirements. Meanwhile, lighting technology has developed and become more versatile and accessible.

Notably, much of the new direction in public lighting has come from artists, rather than the lighting designers, architects and engineers who would once have had prime responsibility for the medium. This symposium aims to look in depth at the particular contribution of the artists who have become involved in public lighting installations and events, and to identify the benefits of using artists as a complement to the work of lighting designers and engineers.

Artists and light

The presentation aims to highlight the long pedigree of artists using electric light. From Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's light experiments of the Bauhaus, through the work of Dan Flavin and the laser artists of the 1970s like Rockne Krebs, it will show that many artists have used electric light as a medium, and point out where they have taken it into the public realm. Alongside this historical overview, it will look at the tradition of architectural light-works, from Albert Speer's "Cathedral of Light" at Nuremberg's parade grounds through the Empire State Building and FutureSystems' Selfridges building in Birmingham, which changes colour according to theme and season.

The session will also look at the various lighting initiatives of recent years, and their various strategies, from the LUCI (Lighting Urban Community International) network of cities to this year's Switched On Lighting festival in London, last year's Radiance light festival in Glasgow and Glow in Newcastle, as well as the various on-going one-off public light projects.

Part of the presentation will consist of an examination of the appeal of light itself, and why it is such an effective medium; one that works on several levels. Light can offer sheer visual sensation, it can create different moods and atmospheres, and it inexorably draws the eye. Different colours can be employed to further modulate the viewer's experience, and some lighting schemes may even cite social usefulness, believing that light can alleviate depression and anti-social activity, as well as offer the public an enhanced sense of security. And of itself, light is a symbol of change and hope, which means that as an artistic medium it often presents an accessible face to the wider public. Christmas lights and seaside illuminations, for instance, remain expressions of leisure and popular sentiment.

Concerns and issues about lighting projects

However, as the last few years have seen a substantial rise in concern about the use of public lighting, it will address the potential pitfalls of commissioning lighting schemes.Firstly, lighting consumes energy, and therefore new lighting projects have to address criticism that they are potentially wasteful.

Secondly, such schemes could at worst be conceived as contributing to 'light pollution', which is illegal as of 2006.Projects using open-air light might conflict with the lobbies that position the night sky as a wilderness to be protected.Councils, landowners, lighting designers and artists have therefore to attend to questions of environmental responsibility that barely arose ten years ago, and while spotlighting, episodic lighting, the use of LEDs and low energy lighting go some way to countering these criticisms, the use of light for civic enhancement is becoming ever more critical - just as it is becoming more creative.

This network meeting aims to address these issues and to propose a new agenda for public lighting.

Discussion of lighting projects

Andrew thanked Oliver for his presentation and invited questions from the delegates. A number of people made comments and asked questions, touching on issues of:

  • How lighting is so often an afterthought, only considered when a building or space is completed.

  • The need for a subtle and moderate approach to lighting because of environmental issues.

  • The opportunity for and often greater tolerance of event based temporary lighting projects rather than permanent lighting projects.

  • How important environmental considerations are and the technology that currently exists,for example more friendly and cleaner materials like LEDs etc.

  • How we need to be careful of perceptions; with lighting often seen as a luxury, and therefore the need to argue the case.

  • The cost of projects, with manpower and installation often using the lion’s share of the budget.

  • The need to be clear about the value of a lighting scheme: what does it add?

  • The positive and negative aspects of lighting and groups such as ‘Dark Skies’ and anti light festivals that have taken place.

  • The possibility of working with groups such as ‘Dark Skies’ and starting to explore the lighting of spaces and areas around commissions; identifying unnecessary lighting and taking a ‘smart’ approach to lighting.

Andrew rounded off the question and answer session and thanked Oliver for his keynote speech. He then introduced Mark Luck, Urban Designer for North Somerset District Council.

Mark Luck, Urban Designer for North Somerset District Council

Mark started his presentation by talking about how, in the late 90s, he got interested in lighting when he was working in Bristol.At the time he felt that lighting was being ‘done’ to buildings and schemes with very little thought, often ruining projects. With this in mind, Mark had travelled to Lyon in France and had been inspired by how they were using lighting to paint colours in the city. He had come home to the UK fuelled with enthusiasm but encountered problems as regards ‘British Standards’ on many projects. Thankfully, Mark said, now the latest legislation was catching up with its European neighbour.

Mark went on to talk about the work he was currently developing in Weston super Mare as part of the Civic Pride Initiative and how art and light were seen as fundamental to the process of revitalising the whole town. The funding of £11m had been secured on the basis of core urban design work, the context of which was place reference and movement. The approach had been to prioritise areas that were used most; using four strategies to inform the process. One of these was the lighting strategy which was aimed at creating a more attractive and safer pedestrian environment within which the town’s nightlife could thrive. The second of these was a public art strategy with £1m being spent on creative, arts-led, lighting schemes.

Lighting projects in Weston super Mare

Mark talked in detail about five specific projects, saying that at the end he would ask the audience to guess whether the schemes were artist led, engineer led or supplier led. He talked about the Big Lamp Corner project, Silica, which had been about achieving a visual connection between the High Street in the town and the seafront. The second project he talked about was the Playhouse Theatre part of Grove Village, Phase 2. The concept here was to light buildings that had an evening function, therefore drawing people to the building and creating a focus in the streetscape.

Third was the Weston Gateway project which picked up on all of the roundabouts as you approach the town and included the work by Peter Freeman, ‘Travelling Light’, situated on the M5.

The fourth project Mark talked about was the work on the central promenade and the proposal to look at a new lighting concept. The area was perceived as being poorly lit and therefore an unwelcoming space. Because there was a need to light the highway as well as the promenade the strategy was being driven in part by function. Lastly was the Knightstone Island project which Mark explained Jim Buckley would be talking about later.

To conclude Mark invited the audience, using a show of hands, to identify one by one, which of the projects was being led by artists, engineers or suppliers. In most cases the audience was right, with a sense that those projects where artists were involved demonstrated a more creative and content-based approach than the purely supplier-led schemes.

Key questions following the first two presentations

The Chairperson thanked Mark for his presentation and asked those present for any questions or comments. He then summarised the morning’s presentations, saying that for him there were a number of key questions that had been raised which he hoped would be explored in more depth in the plenary session. These were:

  • Artist versus engineer, is it either/or or both?

  • How you embed artists in schemes?

  • How you manage a collaborative approach?

  • Is lighting about events or should it be permanent?

  • The importance of working within an environmental context.

  • What adds value; is it about place reference or is it just a ‘bit of slap’?

After lunch the delegates returned to hear a presentation by artist Jim Buckley.

Jim Buckley, artist

Jim started by talking through and showing slides of works he had produced over the last fifteen years, including ‘Flood’ in Japan in 1993 and more recently in 2005, ‘Rainbow’ in Aberdeen. He said that many of his works were produced in the context of regeneration, and that because they were temporary in nature they served to draw attention to specific places and spaces. Jim talked about the organisation IDEAS in Public Space Ltd that he and two colleagues had established in 2005 and the manifesto that they had created as their vision.

'Knight Lights': work by Jim Buckley for Knightstone Island

'Knight Lights': work by Jim Buckley
for Knightstone Island

Jim went on to talk about his work on the Knightstone Island scheme. He said that the brief didn’t specifically talk about light but more about the historical context of the site. The concept, ‘Knight Lights’, he had developed was to create wind powered colour changing LED lights that respond to the tidal changes in the Bristol Channel. These lights, he said, will be placed in cast elements in the sea wall. Because the work requires low light levels in order to function he requested that he be allowed to address the design of the general amenity lighting on the island and was proposing that the lighting be powered by the provision of wind turbines. Other elements of the commission included the ‘Ladies Bath’ and a scheme that also acts as an early flood warning system.

Jim concluded by talking about what he felt artists brought to schemes. He felt they brought meaning; were able to stand back and notice things that other people hadn’t and played an important role in acting as a catalyst for shared creativity by bringing those involved in the scheme together under a common creative thread. But he felt it only worked in this way if there were people such as Mark involved in the scheme, who had a role as an overseer and provided a ‘way in’ for the artist. Andrew thanked Jim for his presentation.

Plenary session

With the speakers' presentations completed, Andrew moved the meeting into the plenary session by asking Jim about how the other design professionals working on the scheme had reacted to his involvement. There followed a lively period of comments and debate that included:

  • The role of the project broker and the skills they require.

  • Issues of time constraints on projects and the importance of having a project manager to see projects through and provide coherence and consistency.

  • Issues of maintenance and how it was important to build costs into the work and to get the appropriate guarantees from suppliers.

  • The role of the press in generating a response to commissioned artworks.

  • The issue of how often artists’ ideas generated in the master planning process can be passed onto suppliers or contractors to complete and in so doing the subtlety of the artists’ ideas are lost or their concept changed.

  • The perception that lighting projects are wasteful and how this argument needs to be met head on and intelligently by being clear about its value from the beginning and not losing sight of the fact that often office and amenity lighting is the biggest culprit in terms of environmental impact.

  • How temporary work can often have more impact than permanent work and can often serve to reduce lighting.

As the plenary session concluded Andrew thanked all the speakers and the audience for attending and contributing.

Maggie rounded up the day by saying that the next Network meeting would be at Spike Island in Bristol in December where we would be looking at the legacy of PROJECT and how it had affected artists’ practice. She thanked the speakers and Andrew and everyone for coming.

An impromptu tour of Silica and Knightstone Island then followed for those available to attend.