Registration remains open for a daylong
symposium on Friday, Oct. 16, at the University of Delaware that will
bring together industry leaders, artists, designers and scholars to
explore the future of artificial lighting.
The symposium, “Green Light: Prospects in Lighting Design and
Technology,” will be held from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Clayton Hall on the
University’s Newark campus. Registration, at $55 per person or $25 for
full-time students with ID from any institution, is now available at this website. The price includes a seated lunch and parking.
Speakers will include urban futures and strategic design consultant
Marco Bevolo; Ricardo Rivera, a UD alumnus who designed the
groundbreaking Nightscape installation on view at Longwood
Gardens; Don Slater, co-founder of the Configuring Light/Staging the
Social research group at the London School of Economics; and other
leading designers, scholars and professionals in the field of lighting.
Following are the featured speakers and their topics.
Marco Bevolo will deliver the keynote address, “Create the
Livable City,” about the approach taken by Philips Lighting’s
city.people.light project from its beginning in 1996 through this year
and will also discuss new trends. The international city.people.light
award was created by Philips and the LUCI (Lighting Urban Community
International) Association to recognize cities, urban planners,
architects and lighting designers for projects that maximize
sustainability and make cities more livable.
In his address, Bevolo will present the latest results of research
that he and Lighting Design Collective founder Tapio Rosenius conducted
on behalf of Philips. Researchers conducted a three‐year study involving
more than 200 European architects, urban planners and academics, as
well as other leading professionals from architectural firms and design
programs.
Sandy Isenstadt, professor of art history and director of UD’s
Center for Material Culture Studies, will give a talk titled “Good
Night: A Short History of Urban Light.” Isenstadt teaches the history of
modern architecture and is the co-editor of the 2015 book Cities of Light: Two Centuries of Urban Illumination, the first global overview of urban lighting. His current book project, The Architecture of Artificial Light, examines the novel luminous spaces introduced by electric lighting.
Peter Y. Ngai, vice president of OLED lighting at Acuity
Brands, will speak about “OLED Lighting: Where Design Embraces
Technology.” OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology creates new
possibilities in design because of its unique characteristics. Ngai, a
pioneer in OLED lighting who holds more than 70 patents related to
lighting design, technology and applications, will explore how this
technology can support designs that are functional, aesthetically
pleasing and in touch with our emotions.
Giana Phelan, director of business development for OLEDWorks,
will speak on the subject “There Is Something About That Light.” Phelan
collaborates with a highly varied mix of customers, including furniture
makers, car manufacturers, contractors and architects. She will discuss
the growing use of OLED lighting and the way that people who experience
it for the first time often have a positive emotional response, feeling
that the light is drawing them in and making them want to engage in it.
Ricardo Rivera will give a talk titled “Animating the
Inanimate: The Art of Projection Mapping.” A visual artist, filmmaker
and a pioneer of the technique of video projection mapping, Rivera is a
UD alumnus from the Class of 1998 and a founder of Philadelphia’s
award-winning Klip Collective. In his talk, he will discuss examples of
his work, including Nightscape: A Light and Sound Experience at Longwood, and describe how projection mapping brings a rigid landscape to life with light and motion.
Anne Militello, the founder of Vortex Lighting in Los Angeles
and head of lighting programs at the California Institute of the Arts,
will speak about “Spotlight on Creative Expression and the Surprising
Power of Crossing Genres.” She approaches lighting design as a holistic
practice and is a renowned stage and architectural lighting designer and
fine artist. Militello has designed for Broadway, concert touring
productions and international opera stages, as well as working at Walt
Disney Imagineering.
Don Slater, reader of sociology and co-founder of the
Configuring Light/Staging the Social research group at the London School
of Economics, will speak on the subject “Lighting as Infrastructure and
as Atmosphere: Designs and Disorder in Cartagena, Colombia.” His
research group studies how designers and users configure light as a
material into the infrastructure of everyday life and built environments
and how designers and social researchers can work together for better
understanding.
Matt Doty, associate professor of materials science and
engineering at UD, will present a talk titled “Changing the Color of
Light: Photon Up- and Down- Conversion.” Doty will describe this
conversion process, in which materials can absorb photons of one color
and emit photons of a different color, and will then discuss his efforts
to develop new materials that implement up-conversion in order to
improve the efficiency of photovoltaic energy harvesting and solid-state
lighting.
Capping the day’s events will be a panel discussion among those
responsible for executing Philadelphia’s June 5th Memorial Park, a
project to honor the six lives lost in the collapse of the Salvation
Army store on June 5, 2013. Nancy Winkler, co-chair of the project,
Alfred Borden of The Lighting Practice, memorial artist Barb Fox and
memorial architect Scott Aker will discuss their interdisciplinary,
collaborative process.
Registration at the symposium will begin at 9 a.m. on Oct. 16, with
the program itself running from 10 a.m. until 5:40 p.m., followed by a
reception at 5:45 p.m. A luncheon and parking will be provided.
‘Nightscape’ at Longwood Gardens
A special event at nearby Longwood Gardens has been added the evening
before the symposium for University alumni, their families and guests
to experience Nightscape, the spectacular, immersive sound-and-light installation designed by Ricardo Rivera, who will also speak at the symposium.
The Longwood event will be held from 6-11 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, with the Nightscape viewing
beginning at sunset, around 7:30 p.m. Those attending will join fellow
alumni and faculty members from the colleges of Arts and Sciences and of
Engineering as they explore the installation at their own pace and then
gather at the Beer Garden to socialize.
Reservations are required for the Longwood event; visit the website to register.
Tickets, including a $10 refreshment coupon, are $25 for adults and $17
for children ages 5-18. The event is organized by the Friends of Art
History and supported by the UD Alumni Association.
Connections and Intersections
“Green Light” is the second in “Art and Science: Connections and
Intersections,” a series of symposiums dedicated to the seamless
connections between the visual arts and the sciences.
By examining topics that bind research in both the arts and sciences,
the symposiums are part of UD’s efforts to familiarize a diverse
audience from business, technology, the arts and academia, as well as
alumni and friends of the University, with its interdisciplinary
activities and its commitment to public humanities.
“Green Light” is a collaboration among the department of Art History,
the Center for Material Culture Studies, the Harker Interdisciplinary
Science and Engineering Laboratory, and the College of Engineering.
Funding is provided by the Office of the Provost, the colleges of
Arts and Sciences and of Engineering, the Department of Art History and
the Center for Material Culture Studies. Additional support has been
provided by Penn Lighting Associates.
