DEFINED
Measured in the absence of light.
IN USE
What is darkness? How can it be defined and be measured? Darkness is measured by the absence of light. Walk deep into the darkest cave and photons will bounce from the walls sharing information. Beyond the threshold of the human vision system, this radiation can be witnessed with technology and ready to be received by a sensitive source.
As we move through the city at night, our vision is less reliable, assisted by the ongoing colonisation of the night through the saturdation of light but also in the bodies that compose the shift workforce. Experiencing darkness in our streets and city centres through ‘sensitive’ exploration could help reframe insecurity sustained by surveillance measures - both artificial and natural. Under the cover of night, or sensitivities change, what do we need to attune to, to feel a greater claim over a right to some sense of invisibility?
Darkness shapes anxiety through obscuring the ‘familiar’ that reassures our senses. But what if we chose to embrace the night through engaging our sensitivities in a different way?
Human vision is largly based on the photopic range, and unable to distinguish between colours under low light conditions, which is one reason why humans can’t see the ‘real’ colour of the night sky. Seeing / not seeing is where fear arrives.
Experiencing the night sky - cloudy and clear - through a study of artificial skyglow and a luminance scale works towards an attunement to the degrees of ‘darkness’. What is the true colour of the night sky? Why does it matter?