At the Margins of Attention: Security Lighting and Luminous Art Interventions in Copenhagen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearchpeer-review

This chapter explores urban lighting in a square in Copenhagen, Denmark. Traditionally, urban lighting has focused on functionality, safety and amenity through an ever-increasing spread of light, making everything visible. Yet new technological advancements in recent decades have meant that urban spaces can be lit in radically new and more energy-efficient ways. This spatial transformation through light is particularly apparent in areas with social challenges, such as crime, where lighting design becomes one of the tools to improve the image and use of urban areas. The chapter investigates one such instance in a square in Copenhagen marked by substantial police presence watching groups of people loitering in parts of the square, while bars, restaurants, shops and a library simultaneously shape a markedly different vibrancy. This multiplicity of use is encompassed by the lighting design, which has engaged lighting designers and artists in co-creation processes aimed at integrating local narratives and sentiments in artistic lighting design, while the remaining lighting infrastructure still has strong elements of security by design. Through ethnographic data, the chapter shows how light may make spaces visible, but the central role of light as part of lived life is to make spaces felt.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLighting Design in Shared Public Spaces
EditorsShanti Sumartojo
Number of pages26
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherRoutledge
Publication date2022
Pages125-150
Chapter7
ISBN (Print)9781032022635, 9781032022642
ISBN (Electronic)9781003182610
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes

ID: 315857783