Documents of Light : Three Case Studies and a Preliminary Model for Organizing Light Knowledge

The proposed area of Documentation studies offers a useful framework for the consideration of transdisciplinary subjects that do not respond fully to critical theories currently prevailing in the humanities and social sciences. This paper will apply a documentation approach to the study of light by examining case studies drawn from theatre, architecture and computer science. Scholars, scientists and lighting practitioners create and employ documents that encode illumination knowledge, which can be understood as the manifestation, simulation or manipulation of light to a particular end. A model encompassing the human body in illuminated space will be suggested as a means of classification, and different document types will be interrogated to suggest the sort of visual arguments and artifacts that can be constructed to demonstrate and communicate illumination knowledge