In Brazil, we never had specialized schools for the education in lighting. My experience with teaching the profession of a lighting designer has started in the beginnings of 2010. My professional start followed the same direction as the one of colleagues from my generation. I went to work into theatre to occupy a vacancy in the audio area and then I changed to light and learnt while I was working. After some time working in small theaters and clubs, I was an employee of a lighting rental company and I learnt everything I could correlate to technology, still analogic. Then my journey into the lighting design led me into the Teatro da Vertigem (www.teatrodavertigem.com.br) and it was introducing to me the questions that made me to study and search.  It allowed me to consolidate my knowledge in the esthetic and technological field.

Is lighting design rather an art or technical profession?

It depends on the area that you choose in the lighting. It can be technical (setup technician, console operator, rigger) or it can be artistic (light designing). In the case of the lighting designer, you must have a technical know-how to create, as does the painter, writer, actor or director. All the artistic fields need that technical to express it, but in dependence on the area in lighting, it will to determine if it get more technical or artistic. It is impossible to say for sure “work with lighting is technical or artistic in nature”.

Do you think that it’s possible to talk about personal “handwriting” or style of a lighting designer? What is that?

I am absolutely sure of this and I believe that it’s important to seek your style, your research, and your own identity. I think that this can manifest itself in the use of specific colors, equipment, angles and technologies, which starts to be recurrent in consecutive works. I believe this can be a tenuous line, for example what is a repetition of formulas and what is in fact a trace of research. But what can determine one point or another is how much these elements are connected with the scene.

Do you use any presentation software that would give you a simulated scene with lights?

As I come from the practical and I have been working with lights for many years and the use of this technology took a long time to come in Brazil and I leave on the ‘look into the space’ and its frequent use in the rehearsal room would make me ‘believe’ in my hypotheses and ideas. I think that it also works for the creative work, most in theater, like anything in the artistic field; so it shall have a dose of risk, of equilibrium. I try to keep my projects from the beginning of the planning until their execution opened to the accidents. I have time to prepare myself technically, to think about the equipment, to decide the angles, to make the choice of the colors and when I concretize all of that in setup’s day, I let myself be taken by the problems that emerge from it. Every step brings me questions that I’ll assimilate; I call that a process and I try to be attentive to what comes from it. If I create in the software and look technically at it taking off all of the possible ‘defects’, I will not know how the result would be, and it is a little bit sterile for me. I say that specifically about the theatre and about a certain kind of theatre, as the one in the “Teatro da Vertigem”, where we work with long processes. I could not say the same about corporate events, architecture and other fields of lighting. I believe that the software use is more than welcome in these cases. I can use the Grand MA, or Wysiwyg. Actually, I work with a team and dedicate myself to think, I give concept to the project and I share the other steps with assistants and interns.

Can you describe a typical content of a day of a lighting designer?

It all depends of the production, because here in Brazil they can change a lot. I will talk about my routine in the creative works of Teatro da Vertigem, because that is what interests me most. In general, we have long processes and we start with a theme (AIDS in Brazil, public health, fashion/consume/slave labour, family, work/capitalism today) and theoretic and empirical research, which I am part from the beginning. After this definition of the theme, I start my own research. My routine, I can say so far that starts with a bigger research about what the group is going to take to the scene (I work always with a team of interns, I like collaborators in the creation, I think a team is more effective than the solitary work, I choose specialists: technicians, architecture students who mastered the technical design etc). This theme gives the start of my esthetic, conceptual and material’s research. Depending on the time of process, it goes and results in experiments during the rehearsal. I’m present during all the practice and use it to experiment with possibilities of textures, colors, angles, material, and also possibilities of installation (map). Part of my work is to produce luminaires, in a handmade process, something that produces a dialogue with the architecture because we work with site specific; church, hospital, prison, stores, abandoned theater, a river and their ships. In the moment that the project consolidates to the technical design, with it in hands I check if everything is going to work right, which is some kind of on-site confirmation from the project executive. These steps aren’t isolated, they’re mixed up, but I’m separating them here so we can understand better that ‘step-by-step’ of the work. So then I start the setup and I follow experimenting, recording, changing positions if we need to, until the process is fully consolidated. So we go on to the final rehearsals and I follow the work looking and correcting.

Can we expect a new astonishing lighting technology that will surpasses all the current in the future?

The lighting industry and stage technology won’t stop themselves and this is very important for those who work in this area. Here in Brazil, we live in a transition that is very interesting to me to work in and to make research about it. The LEDs, moving lights, colors made of dichroic filters, the use of RGB in the composition of color, they’re all still not too much explored in the theatre, I don’t say that about the musical theatre but the dramatic theatre, experimental, this researching theater. This interests me a lot. We are living here through the same transition as it was during the invention of the fire, the gas, the electric light, the analogical controllers, the digital consoles and design software. It’s interesting for me to work in this place, to use this machines, between all what we have of most primitive, most archaic nature. This attrition is the moment I live from creativity and is my research. I await new technologies, but I still have to experiment a lot and to use the things at my disposal. I believe that Europe and United States have been through that, but we still have the time to assimilate what we got and loose the preconception about what theatre light is and what is not. I think technologies are for that, all can be used in the theatre, here we still don’t accept it, but what is the most important thing is what the scene requires and not what asks the tradition.

What are you working on in the present time?

I am still finishing the season of the last presentation of Teatro da Vertigem, “O Filho” (“The Son”), based on the Franz Kafka’s book, “Letter to His Father”. Simultaneously, I have finished the school year in SP Escola de Teatro (www.spescoladeteatro.org.br), in which I coordinate the Lighting Design School. In the first semester of 2016, we’ll begin to do the research of the text for our new project, “A Construção de F. Kafka” (“The Construction of F. Kafka”) that will complete our trilogy (Kastelo, Karta ao Pai and Konstrução). And in the next year, I’ve got some things already scheduled: a tour in Brazil with “O Filho”, two productions, the ending of a luminotechnical project in a Museum and FLIP (important literary fair in the country) and some few corporate events.

If you have a look on a scene at the stage, how would you tell good lighting from the bad? Is it possible at all to recognize what is a concept and what is a mistake?

It has to be something really evident, some ambiguities are hard to be detected. As I live by this and my sight’s been active and I am always attentive to the movements, shapes, use of color, angles. Sometimes I pay more attention to how the sense of precariousness becomes hard to be represented. I see my apprentices using an elaborated speech with a lot of justification, but a long way distant to what we see in the scene. The fragility of the design is always evident to the eyes of a specialist. It is impossible to have a convincing design without a technical domain and strong references.

What do the references in the lighting design mean to you?

My references are assorted and it depends a lot on the project. My current reference is the city. The urban light fascinates me. Its shadows, the contrast with the internal environments, the buses in movement, the different qualities of car headlights (nowadays with halogens, xenon, LED), the lights of the houses invading the street, from the Neopentecostal churches with the cold white light, til contrast among the environments seen of the streets, the wet road with the marks of the traffic. In short, one infinite world of light and shadow. Depending on the work, I’ll choose a perspective. Whether it is related to work, fine arts, cinema, cartoon, urban art, design. It interests me a lot to relate the equipment with the architecture of the scene, this why does exist a very big variation in the use of references. It is always connected to the work, for which I will design the lights. For the use of the color, first I let myself to contaminate by the project and by the guidelines of the scenography and art direction, then I write my own search. I am in love with the contrast and I started my career ‘drowned’ in bright/dark, expressionism, noir. I still think a lot about the shadow as a very strong possibility to the scene and I study new possibilities to the bright/dark. If I am not wrong: “We are instructed to do the negative; the positive is already within us”, Kafka maybe mentioned something about that.

When I was a kid I was amazed by cartoons, like every child I would say. My father showed me cartoon with a 8 mm projector in the house: he would mount the film reel in the projector and then switch on the lamp of the machine. The light would soon start to flicker inside the shutter and the film to advance through the plate, revealing the magic of motion and so I was astonished. I was very excited by the characters getting alive, this was a kind ceremony for me and I have a very vivid picture of this in my memory. I think this strongly motivate me when I later decided to study animation. Also I think as a student I was lucky to find the right school and some great teachers and this kept the dream alive. I would say that Videomapping later came as a natural evolution of all this life experience. I strongly acknowledge videomapping as an expanding reprojection of cinematic depiction.

Could you tell us about your first videomapping?

I discovered videomapping by chance, collaborating on a theatre piece where video acted as part of the narrative. The wings of the stage covered the lower section of characters’ bodies. Thus the  video projections completed the remaining portion of the acting scene. A very simple visual inter-act which needed some visual clarity to produce an effective result, so I created a video mask layer to clean up the projection: I suddenly realize the whole range of possibilities and I remember this as a clear moment of enlightenment and inspiration.

You mix traditional and digital animation, would you say that you have a “unique”  approach to the videomapping?

When the lived experience of architecture untangles the complexity of memory and imagination, light becomes the only medium to grant access to the space in order to enlarge imagination: and so the ephemeral moments of our recollections become sharper. I investigate “gesture” as physicalization of oneiric substance and so I’m looking for new means between handcrafts and numeric art.

Could you describe your creative process?

We apply Tra-digital animation as a case study, where the paradox of “timing” becomes material: such declination explores the edges of imagination and questions the liminality between literature and space. Our narrative often explores the notion of memory, places and marks: we depict a journey into idealization, romanticism and paradoxical re-thinking of new contemporary forms of art.

How much are you influenced by the story of the building that you are mapping?

Buildings often speak to themselves, they carry their own history and so everything lays there, embodied within. Jan Swankmajer believes that by touching objects you deposit feelings and emotion in them, so creating the dormant soul of any inanimate object: he then works to “excavate” such content from the object, through the animation process. Architecture and Buildings are constructed, lived, inhabited, used, converted, destroyed, bombed and rebuilt, so they are possessed by incredible spirits. In our work we try so to deepen inside the history, because videomapping cannot just be related to the facade, and to expose our discovery to the audience, which always has a big role in our creative intent.

Your are mostly known for your videomapping creations, but you are also a teacher in the Fine Arts Academy, an animator, a graphic designer, a visual artist… In which area do you like to work the most?

I don’t have a favorite one. I keep ideas and approaches interconnected so things stay fresh and I can experiment more. I’m fascinated by the exploration of the intimate connection between topics and tools, artistic expression and signifier. But mostly indeed I like teaching because it’s a playground where I can express my true self and where I can practise on the most fascinating tool, which is the human soul.

Recently you worked in theatre, how do you feel the difference? Where do you feel more comfortable?

Theatre is the dilution of an instant, the expansion of a moment, the diary of the present. It’s both a mystery and a revelation, it’s the supreme ground for any artistic discourse. I enjoy working inside dark spaces, it’s like a discourse with the subconscious.

Behind Lab Mammasonica, there is more than one person. Is the team work important for you?

Team work is everything for us, it’s the secret, it’s the real key to success.

What are you working on now and what are your projects in the near future?

I’m currently working on new installation in public spaces and developing immersive installation. I’m willing to investigate more on the relations between the matter and its immaterial surroundings.

In the last productions you worked on, you had to share the space with the light. What do you think about this combination? How did you deal with it?

I don’t personally consider projectors much different from traditional light source, it’s really just a matter of how you approach them.

Your latest installations took place in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, and now you are starting to work again in Sicily, how do you explain that?

No specific reason for this, really. New media are starting to augment locally and we are naturally taking part into this development. There are endless possibilities but there are more difficulties here than abroad. Italy needs a lot of attention since the last twenty years our culture was vandalized by politics and television.

Videomapping became very popular. Do you think videomapping era is already ending? How can you still amaze people?

Videomapping will be considered merely a projection technique, a tool. Nowadays a strong visual detachment has been achieved from the physical perception through the virtual realm. Any interplay between mapping and kinetics, light and matter offer a complete new range of spatial considerations, shifting our attention from surfaces to the volume. We only started to move, thus it’s just the end of the beginning.

Publikace je členěna do dvou částí; první je věnována specifikaci praktických aplikací světelného designu a druhá světelnému designu jako tvůrčímu procesu.

V českém uměleckém prostředí není obor divadelní lighting design akceptován jako samostatná umělecká činnost, ale jako podpůrný výtvarný aspekt umělecké tvorby. Snad je to kvůli jeho přesahu do jiných oborových odvětví umění. Ve světě je však chápán jako samostatný obor umělecké tvorby, využívající jak znalosti techniky, technologických postupů a dnes i velmi sofistikovaných komplexních zařízení a systémů, tak i znalosti scénografické tvorby a umělecké kreativity.  Zdrojem informací pro tuto publikaci jsou elektronické a tištěné materiály sesbírané autorem v letech 2006-2008 během studijní a pracovní stáže na katedře světelného designu finské Divadelní akademie v Helsinkách.

Aplikovaný lighting design: Vhled do oboru světelného designu
Autor: Jan Hons Šuškleb
ISBN 978-80-86928-83-8
Rok vydání 2010
Vazba brož.
Počet stran 41
Formát A4

Eshop JAMU

Uměleckým i technickým aspektům tvorby světelného designu pro divadlo, koncerty, výstavy a jiné živé akce je věnovaná publikace předního britského světelného designéra Nicka Morana, která aktuálně přichází na knižní pulty v českém překladu.

Odborná publikace Světelný design pro divadlo, koncerty, výstavy a živé akce, která je první odbornou publikací svého druhu v českém jazyce, kombinuje praktické vědomosti s estetickými a teoretickými exkurzy. Ukazuje profesionální praxi od prvního nápadu přes konkrétnější představy, plánování a sestavování světelného parku až po veřejné uvedení.

Jedenáct kapitol na 240 stránkách doplňuje řada fotografií, ilustrací a grafů či praktických výpočtů. Kniha není určena jen světelným designérům, ale také režisérům a dalším členům inscenačních týmů či jevištním technikům a produkčním, kterým napomůže pochopit možnosti a limity světla v živém představení. Publikaci společně vydávají Institut umění – Divadelní ústav / Pražské Quadriennale aInstitut světelného designu za podpory Ministerstva kultury ČR.

Publikaci je možné zakoupit na recepci Institutu umění – Divadelního ústavu (Celetná 17, Praha) nebo si ji objednat na dobírku či fakturu písemně, faxem, e-mailem na adrese: Institut umění – Divadelní ústav, Michaela Machoňová, Celetná 17, 110 00 Praha 1, tel.: 224 809 137, fax: 224 811 452, e-mail: publik@divadlo.cz.
Cena publikace je 390 Kč.

TZ kniha Nick_Moran

Více na : http://www.czechdesign.cz/temata-a-rubriky/svetelny-design-pro-divadlo-koncerty-vystavy-a-zive-akce

Dotazník osvětlení

Informační zdroje

Poznámky světlo ve veřejném prostoru

Francois-Eric Valentin: Lumiere pour le spectacle / Light for the show

Respectively published by the Library Theatre in 1994
Více na http://www.francois-eric-valentin.com/

Max Keller: Light fantastic – umění a design scénického svícení

Publikace švýcarského světelného designéra byla v roce 2001 oceněna Golden Pen Award ISITT v USA.
Více na http://www.maxkeller.org/

Richard Pilbrow

Stage lighting
New York, 1970

Stage Lighting Design: the Art, the Craft, the Life
New York, 2008

Steven Louis Shelley: A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting

(Author:) “Generally, the purpose of a theatrical presentation is to entertain, educate, and communicate ideas…”

Graham Walters: Stage Lighting Step by Step

– The Complete Guide on Setting the Stage With Light to Get Dramatic Results