Workshop Series during Nobel Week Lights

These first two sessions, focusing on reflections on light (with those on sound to follow in 2024 and 2025), will bring together scientists, designers and filmmakers as artists to collaborate on the cinematic representation of light and sound pollution. Addressing these “tangible” yet invisible but audible forms that affect our ecosystems and target our most used senses, sight and hearing, we aim to merge acoustic memories with visual evidence. Circadia seeks to restore historical records, capture current states of light and soundscapes, and envision future scenarios.

The interdisciplinary approach and curated sessions span fields including legislation, medicine (ophthalmology and audiology), biology, philosophy, astronomy, sociology, environmental history and anthropology. Our vision is to unite art, science and technology. We aim to expose the underestimated effects of light and sound pollution by using cutting-edge technologies such as AI and 3D to create an immersive experience that promotes social awareness and change.

Showcasing both the seen and the unseen, the heard and the unheard, Circadia aims to use art as a catalyst for change, exploring how creative engagement can drive change.

Read about the sessions below!

Workshop 1 – Circadia, Too Loud and Too Bright: Representation of Light Pollution through the Arts

When: 6 December, at 16.00–17.30
Where: Scenkonstmuseet (Swedish Museum of Performing Arts), Sibyllegatan 2, Stockholm
Book tickets: Scenkonstmuseet

The intense rise in nighttime brightness isn’t solely due to population increase; cheaper technology has led to a huge surge in light pollution over the past two decades. The overuse of light at night not only diminishes the way we connect to the night sky but it affects the environment, it affects all other animals, it affects plant pollination and insect activity. 70% of all species are nocturnal, they are more active at night. So light pollution is stealing the night habitats, and it is impacting their survival and we need these species for our survival. In this workshop, you will experience, listen to – and reflect on the representation of light pollution through the arts.

What to expect

At 16:00: Visitors and participants will arrive at the workshop and be led into a complete dark room – there will be a short while to experience darkness. The room will slowly be illuminated by a pristine nocturnal sky, shown on a screen.
 
At 16:15 Moderator Costanza Julia Bani will introduce the panelists, in real life or in telepresence.
 
At 17:00 there will be 20-30 minutes for a Q&A. The audience is requested to fill in a hand-out where they will briefly described what they felt when sharpening their eyes in darkness and their degree of comfort or discomfort.

Panelists

Johan Eklöf, PhD, is a Swedish bat scientist and writer, most known for his work on microbat vision and more recently, light pollution. He is the author of the Darkness Manifesto.

Irene Borgna, PhD is an Italian Alpine anthropologist, who wrote several books about life in the mountain areas and in 2021 published Cieli Neri, where she undergoes a journey under the last black skies in Europe.

Sofia Axelrod, PhD, Research Associate at the Young Laboratory for Genetics (The Rockefeller University). She is a sleep researcher in the laboratory of Michael W. Young, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, at the Rockefeller University in New York.

Fabio Falchi, physicist and astronomist, has been working on light pollution for more than 25 years. He is one of the authors of the First Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness and The World Atlas of Light Pollution.

Read more about Costanza Julia Banis artistic research project Circadia/Too Loud and Too Bright.

Lecture – The lost starry sky and light pollution

When: 6 December, at 18.00–19.30
Where: Scenkonstmuseet (Swedish Museum of Performing Arts), Sibyllegatan 2, Stockholm
Book tickets: Scenkonstmuseet

The event is organised in collaboration with the Swedish Energy Agency's Lighting Days conference and the Nobel Week lights festival.

The three invited speakers will talk about the loss of the night sky from their different perspectives.

Panelists

Clara Fraenkel, Lighting Designer. Member of White Architects.

Johan Eklöf, Bat Researcher and Author (see bio above)

Dan E Nilsson, Professor Emeritus, Functional Zoology, Lund Vision Group, Lund University.

About the Nobel Week Lights

Between 2 and 10 December, the Nobel Week Lights festival takes place in Stockholm. This year, SKH, together with KTH, KMH and Konstfack, has created the sound and light installation Circadia Waves: Resonances, which will be displayed outdoors at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts. The light festival is presented by the Nobel Prize Museum and invites both international and local artists, designers, and students to create public light artworks inspired by the Nobel Prize. The light installations illuminate the Nobel Prize laureates’ scientific discoveries, literature, and peace work.

Circadian Waves: Resonances is inspired by Nobel Prize winners Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm, and is based on Costanza Julia Banis, lecturer in film production at SKH, research project Circadia/Too Loud and Too Bright.

Read more about SKH's participation during Nobel Week Lights!