Configuring Light/Staging The Social

A research programme led by Don Slater (LSE) and Joanne Entwistle (Kings)

Light is a material through which we organize social space; light is the infrastructure of everyday life. The Configuring Light research programme aims to look at the different knowledges, practices and technologies through which we use and understand light – in everyday life, urban planning and design, energy and environmental action, cultural forms.

Crossing boundaries between social sciences, humanities, architecture and technology, Configuring Light aims to develop new concepts, methods and information to understand light as material culture. The assumptions at the core of the project are twofold:

Light consumption has a greater impact on energy use than any other single social practice; changes in light use stemming from new knowledges and methodologies can make a huge environmental and economic contribution.

Light, as a fundamental feature of social life and of design, provides grounds for deeper methodological integration between social sciences and design disciplines, with possibilities of dramatic changes of practice on both sides of this divide. You can download the project brief here.