Konrad Lohöfener

The winter semester is shaped by the dark season. Sunlight gradually diminishes, and our everyday lives increasingly depend on artificial light sources. But what exactly is light – matter, dimension, or phenomenon? Is light tangible? How do we shape light? What does light do to us? How do we interact with it? And what do light objects look like that possess a special radiance beyond their mere physical form? Light means life. Only with sunlight is life on Earth possible. Think, for example, of photosynthesis, of natural evolution, of human existence, and much more. When humans learned to control fire, they brought not only warmth but also light into their caves and recognized the extraordinary power of this medium. With Edison’s invention of the light bulb, the switch in our modern caves was finally flipped, and the night was, quite literally, turned into day. Light surrounds us constantly. It is difficult to get up without light, and exhausting to fall asleep with too much of it. Light not only regulates our daily and nightly rhythms but also acts as a kind of conductor for hours, days, and seasons. Our sensory perception—especially our vision—is directly dependent on light. Without it, we cannot visually grasp the things around us; we quite literally stumble in the dark. Light is ambivalent. There are always both sides: “light and shadow.” As illuminating as bright moments can be, the opposite also exists. Too much light destroys and can, in the worst case, become a form of torture. All these phenomena and qualities were to be explored during this semester. The aim of the project was the development of a light object and a spatial installation. Both outcomes—object and space—could follow practical, formal, conceptual, analytical, speculative, experimental, or humorous approaches. Ideally, they combined several of these perspectives. The focus was on working with prototypes and experimental setups in order to cultivate a hands-on, design-driven approach.