Lightscapes/Nightscapes – An Introduction

The open-source website nightearth.com provides the visitor with a “visual representation of the Earth’s surface at night,” as is stated on the site.  With their project, an explorable and movable 3D model of the earth, the initiators attempt to draw attention to the unequal distribution of illumination across the globe but also point out the problem of light pollution: metropolitan areas appear as sparkling “beacons of light,” whereas other parts of the planet are plunged into darkness, depicted in blue. Viewed from outer space, extremely densely populated areas, such as the Nile Delta, engender their own light forms drawn from earth’s geological formations. This dossier takes Night Earth’s project, which stays “at the surface” of the global “net of light,” swerving between beauty and “informational value”, as its starting point to investigate the multifaceted interconnections of illumination and urbanity.¹“In addition to its informational value, the Night Earth map is aesthetically pleasing, allowing us to appreciate the planet’s beauty from a unique perspective”, https://www.nightearth.com/?@30.494437,68.525294,4.393765273954059z&data=$bWVsMg==&lang=en (last accessed April 8, 2025).

To come to terms with said entanglements, we propose the concept of L/Nightscapes. The ambiguity of the term that combines Night, Light and the suffix -scape attempts to encompass their mutual conditionality: the potential of light to map and structure, to even create space(s), is in turn represented by thinking of these manifestations as (land)scapes, building upon landscapes’ “double identity,” connoting both “domain” and “scenery.”²Kenneth R. Olwig, “The ‘Actual Landscape,’ or Actual Landscape?”, in Landscape Theory, ed. Rachael Ziady DeLue and James Elkins (New York: Routledge, 2018), 158. While the former is bound to the “art of place making,” the latter “belongs to the discourse of the aesthetics of space”.³Ibid., 158. Thus, political, economic, communal, environmental, infrastructural (post-)colonial, gendered and societal aspects are joined with aesthetic concerns.

Comprehensive illumination of urban spaces, buildings, streets and interiors has become fundamental as well as ordinary. As Sandy Isenstadt remarks in her monograph Electric Light: An Architectural History: “Naturalized in its ubiquity, its benefits countless, its bright, crisp, visual character the very image of optimism and reason, electric light has become inextricable from modern life and, at the same time, unremarkable.”⁴Sandy Isenstadt, Electric Light: An Architectural History (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018), 1. Yet Isenstadt argues exactly against this seemingly unremarkable quality of electric light: its introduction at the end of the nineteenth century fundamentally changed how people thought about and experienced space: “Electric light generated unprecedented spaces that altered and often eclipsed other, prior spaces.”⁵Isenstadt, 1. These changes are laced with economic concerns and desires, their dissemination around the globe bound up with colonization: electric light should help the colonized people to see “reason.”

In his comprehensive study Lengthening the Day, Brian Bowers shows how darkness — once the “natural” situation at night — has transformed into the exception to the rule. As the illumination of public space in the so-called West has, in fact, become so abundant, that urban dwellers expect their environment to be lit at night, thus rendering artificial lighting “natural,” a matter of course. He argues that

only two groups of people have a need for darkness. Astronomers complain, with good reason, that light ‘spillage’ upwards from public lighting brightens the night sky and makes astronomical work more difficult. […] The other group preferring darkness is burglars, and the increasing use of ‘security lighting’, often switched on automatically when someone approaches, demonstrates the general belief that good lighting deters criminals.⁶Brian Bowers, Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 194.

Darkness is here conceived as a special interest of researchers and criminals, as only these two groups of people have “a need for darkness”. This statement, of course, is in line with nineteenth and twentieth century narratives of innovation and productivity. The fact that human beings, as well as flora and fauna, need a circadian rhythm of light and darkness as contemporary studies indicate, is rendered secondary to the industrial potential a well-lit city holds.⁷For a survey of different studies see K.M. Zielinska-Dabkowska, E.D. Schemhammer, J.P. Hanifin, G.C Brainard, “Reducing nighttime light exposure in the urban environment to benefit human health and society”, Science 380 (2023), 1130–1135.

Crucially, light pollution and the investigation thereof elucidate the multi-layered and sometimes conflicting issues of artificial illumination. Zielinska-Dabkowska et al. point out the misconception

that increased electric light outdoors is seen as a sign of wealth and prosperity. Economic growth, for example, has been estimated through satellite imagery of Earth at night to record visible illumination and correlated to gross domestic product (GDP), even though most relevant activity actually occurs during the day, thereby reducing the accuracy of these estimates.⁸Zielinska-Dabkowska et al, 1132.

While abundant nighttime illumination is falsely conceived as a universal signum of prosperity, it is precisely the affluent neighborhoods in the Western world that have successfully implemented mechanisms to combat light pollution.⁹Zielinska-Dabkowska et al, 1131. Furthermore, access to light or an overabundance of it also affects social dimensions, with either impeding education in areas where light is scarce or hindering indigenous communities to practice cultures that rely on celestial cues:

[s]ome have even expressed concern that the eradication of starlore and the disconnection from the heavens as a result of light pollution could contribute to the decline of entire groups by impeding their history and culture.¹⁰Zielinska-Dabkowska et al, 1132.

The intentional downscaling of illumination at night can also be a result of energy shortages. Given Russia’s war on Ukraine as its cause, Germany experienced an “energy crisis” prompting communes to discuss and actually de-illuminate parts of cities: streetlights should be switched off to save electricity.¹¹See, for instance, https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/verden/verden-ort47274/ukrainekrieg-energiekrise-strassenlampen-gehen-frueher-aus-verden-91670185.html (last accessed April 15, 2025). This represents an issue of gender mainstreaming, as such measures forget the fundamental difference in how women, queer people and people of colour experience and live through the night. An initiative from Vienna called Feminist Nightscapes attempts to raise awareness for these issues of urban injustice.¹²Elke Krasny, Sophie Lingg and Claudia Lomoschitz, “Feminist Nightscapes”, FKW Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur 74 (2024), 167–177. Through the organization of “collective and urban performances” in which the participants are invited to act out “scores” while walking through the city, the collective aims to “raise awareness for the impact of infrastructures at night on the affective, epistemic, social, material, and ecological dimensions of urban life.”¹³Krasny et al, 172–177; 168.

Taking into account and expanding these outlined insights into the complex networks and mechanisms of illumination that affect societies culturally, economically and socially, L/Nightscapes can thus be discussed considering the following elements (among others).

Forms and Materials of Illumination

In extension to Isenstadt’s work on electric light, we want to broaden the scope of the discussion to all means of artificial light including “older” forms of illuminating media such as gas, candles, oil and/or fire and “alienated devices,” such as mobile phones. Before electricity reshaped illumination in public and private spaces, other materials had been used to light up darkened interiors, streets, or buildings: fire, wax and oil have been employed since antiquity. More widespread illumination of cityscapes that share similarities with modern practices are documented from the seventeenth century onwards. With the advent of electricity, older forms of lighting have been gradually displaced; the discourse on surveillance and security played an important role. Yet the tale of the electric revolution also focuses mainly on the so-called West.

Different forms – different qualities

The glare of strong electric bulbs or the flicker of gas lamps, and the possibilities of the bendable and colorful neon-tubes have been explored as part of the allure of the Las Vegas strip as well as by artists working with their aesthetics in the Concept Art of the 1960s. The quality of these different lighting materials needs to be considered in concert with their surroundings, other materials such as textiles, different metals, concrete or stone, and glass. Their materiality and sensuality impinge upon how the L/Nightscapes are being perceived, lived through, and mediated.

Architecture, Monuments, Signs

Artificial Lighting has generated iconic illuminated landmarks, whether it is the famous view of Times Square in New York, flooded with glowing advertisements, Shibuya Crossing, or the Akihabara district in Tokyo. In some cases, artificial lighting has been transformed into architecture itself.¹⁴For a comprehensive study on the topic, see Isenstadt (2018). Furthermore, the lighting of public spaces can be understood along the lines of (self-)representation, since popular and historically or otherwise important monuments and places are usually lit to demarcate their significance – for instance, the spectacularization of the pyramids in Egypt. At the same time, light can be used in a purely pragmatic fashion, by highlighting signs of pharmacies, police stations or crossroads. Yet the symbolic meaning of light is not only utilized along the lines of social or pragmatic significance. An accumulation of light – or its absence – points towards and embodies the unequal distribution of power, resources, and economy.

L/Nightscapes and the Arts

Illuminated cityscapes have also resonated with artists of different times and cultural backgrounds. Urban lighting has become a motif or a topic in many genres of art, ranging from caricatures through film to song. The atmosphere and visual value of cities flooded in bright and colorful light has developed into a common element in many contemporary visual cultures. While being a common motif, illuminated cityscapes do not always serve the same narratives. Rather, the motif can be utilized as a projection screen to represent many different artistic intentions. When L/Nightscapes are not used as a visual value, what do they stand in for? Which narratives are being catered to? Which narratives have been underrepresented? The adaptations of L/Nightscapes in visual media can serve as a crystallization of different cultural, historical, and political applications of urban lighting.

Strategies of illumination and their artistic adaptation and processing can have many different intentions, ranging from political or socio-economical to aesthetic objectives. The collected essays aim to analyse these strategies, their complexities and their incongruities, as well as to create more awareness for the influence of illumination on urban life. This dossier developed out of the 23rd NECS Graduate Workshop entitled “L/Nightscapes: Perspectives on Illumination and the City”, which was held in October 2024 at the University of Cologne. The interdisciplinary approach, gathering contributions from art history, media studies, film studies, and history, seeks to offer a line of inquiry that does not only take practical and pragmatic aspects of urban lighting into account, but also its cultural, historical, post- and decolonial, socio-economic, and aesthetic meaning and importance. Some of the overarching themes discussed in the following articles include the following.

Space and Power

Several contributions are concerned with the mediality of L/Nightscapes in image media and (as) architecture, focusing on the potential of light to create or simulate space. Sofia Panza and Carlo Ugolotti offer insights into the lighting strategies and aesthetics in the works of Bernardo Bertolucci, teasing out the interdependencies of the profilmic and filmic space. In Il conformista (1970), for example, Bertolucci uses stark contrasts between light and shadow to express the pressure that fascist Italy exerted on individuals to conform, thus depriving citizens of individual space. Another example for the spatiality of L/Nightscapes is offered by Eva Wiegert’s contribution, which discusses contemporary photographs taken at night in Lagos, Nigeria. Here, the aesthetic strategies to flatten, abstract or construct spaces transform these images into negotiations of hierarchical power structures. As the centralized power supply is unreliable, citizens develop individual and creative means of illumination. Elif Kaymaz, discussing early twentieth century Turkey, shows how nocturnal illumination was employed to symbolize a change of (governmental) power in the young Republic. Kaymaz discusses temporary architectures and illuminated structures that were developed specifically for national holidays. These ephemeral architectures that sit on top of the permanent morphology of the city (Istanbul and Ankara), provide spectacle but are also utilized to generate a national identity — i.e., a coherent cultural space. In Clara Podlesnigg’s contribution, the George Floyd Memorial Hologram takes center stage. Podlesnigg follows the hologram, which was meant as a political intervention at the site of confederate memorials in the wake of the BLM Movement, through its many pictorial iterations online to tease out how Floyd’s resurrected Black body has become increasingly commercialized, thus contesting its intended political power.

Materialities and Epistemologies

Further articles engage with questions of materiality, both in regard to perception and experience through Lightscapes/Nightscapes and in respect to material culture. Chantal Meng presents findings from her artistic research, which is phenomenologically grounded and mainly photographic. Through reflecting on the workshops she organizes and her own photography, she shows how the experience of artificial light reshapes our very concept of darkness, consequently necessitating a renegotiation of shadow(s). Simon Schiller’s contribution focuses on celluloid night techniques, joining material with technological and aesthetic concerns. By focusing on the quasi-educational film Unsichtbare Kräfte 1 (GER, 1928) Schiller develops thoughts on not only the technological advances in film, making night-footage more easily attainable, but also Berlin’s advance into modernity, catalyzed by electricity. Finally, Laura Laabs follows the tracks of a drone, the central vehicle in a tech-demo for raytracing-technologies. Laabs’s investigation of shiny and immaculately smooth digital materialities is contrasted with a record of the material reality of quotidian life to challenge supposedly universal conceptions of linearity.

Patricia Pia Bornus

Patricia Pia Bornus (PhD, M.A.) read history of art and musicology at the Universities of Cologne and Vienna. She holds a Phd from the University of Cologne. Her research interests include visual culture studies, histories of knowledge, history of the senses and seeing as a cultural practice. She worked as a researcher in the project “Die Instrumentensammlung der Kölner Musikwissenschaft im Netzwerk der NS-Zeit”, funded by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste and was a pre-doctoral-fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institue for Art History in Rome. From 2021 to 2024 she was assistant professor at the chairs for Art and Media History of Image Media and for Popular Culture and its Theories at the University of Cologne.

Bianka-Isabell Scharmann

Bianka-Isabell Scharmann (M.A.) studied Theater, Film and Media Studies, Art History and History of Knowledge in Frankfurt am Main and Stockholm. Scharmann currently holds a position as assistant professor (non-tenure track) at the chair for Art and Media History of Image Media at the University of Cologne. Scharmanns is also a PhD Candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), writing a feminist historiography of textile filters in film. In 2024, Scharmann received the Karsten-Witte-Preis for an outstanding contribution in Film Studies, conferred by the AG Filmwissenschaft. Research interests include queer-feminist theory and history of knowledge of film, aesthetics and textil(ity), feminist media historiography, experimental film history and mediality of textiles.

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