REINVENTING HARBOUR CITIES II

Jürgen Hasse in an Interview with Shauna Laurel Jones:

Man-made Illumination is always a Play

Interview with Jürgen Hasse Jürgen Hasse is a professor at the Institute of Human Geography at Johan Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt. His main interests are phenomenology in geography, philosophical views on man and nature, and the aestheticization of urban space. Hasse’s presentation at the Reinventing Harbour Cities conference touched upon how urban illumination can reinvent the public space of cities; he also discussed how the numerous signs within a city that people interpret intellectually are also perceived on a different level, more closely connected to the senses. Shauna Laurel Jones sat down with Jürgen Hasse to talk about phenomenology and perception, artists’ interventions versus cities’ attempt at “beautification,” and how illumination can change the way we feel in our environment.

Shauna Laurel Jones: You spoke of urban and artistic illumination as “a moment of discourse,” as well as the perception of lighting as a form of communication itself. Can you expound upon that?

Jürgen Hasse: Illumination is a part of a discourse; this is in the sense of Michel Foucault. He understands discourse as not only constructed by words, but also by what he calls “the other” of language and of words. On this side of “the other” of language, we find this special language of lighting. It is a summarizing of suggestions of emotions and effects. Effects and emotions are very important in lighting, and most people do recognize their understanding; they think of lighting as pronunciation in the category of emotion. They are aware that they feel this thing, but they don’t think of it. And that’s also one of Foucault’s interests: to make people able to think about this blindness in their self-positioning in society.

SLJ: You said that to be effective in an urban setting, artistic interventions with illumination should be temporary so we don’t take them for granted. So it is the temporary nature of such illumination that has the possibility to further develop this discourse?

JH: Here we have another understanding of discourse. When you say that illumination shall be permanent, you have a discourse in the local press and among people—in the sense that they are speaking about it. That’s very important. But this winds down within two or three months; this is a discourse, a discussion, with words. The other role illumination plays as a form of discourse is not in words, but in the category of feeling. Therefore, I argue for literacy: you must learn to find words to speak about these feelings.

SLJ: Going back to Foucauldian discourse: does this feelings-based discourse have something to do with signified ideas expressed by light—for instance, light as “the naked truth,” as you said, but also light as an idea, or as a ray of hope? Is this discourse connected to these concepts, or is it something that goes deeper into more primal feelings?

JH: Yes. It’s always ongoing, this form of discourse. Most important is the circumstance that it is not only the impact of illumination, it is a part of art and daily living. We also communicate with words, but by the same way with gestures, for example—that is one way of meta-discourse underlying words. And that is the point which phenomenology names it bodily communication. You communicate with your body, but not the body as material; it’s a living, feeling body. That’s the main connecting point to men. And illumination never goes to the brain alone; no, it goes always to feeling at first.

SLJ: And that’s why illumination as a “half-thing,” as you called it, a thing that is only partially tangible, can more effectively create a sense of atmosphere in—as opposed to just beautification of—a city?

JH: That’s an interesting point. The last speaker [Ellinor Coombs] said: “All good missions need a plan.” The question is—when the plan is possible, you must find a way to construct by way of rationality what other people are only feeling. And there’s the gap. The producer has the rational imagination of the plan he wants to realize. And people going into a scene of illumination without rationality—they only feel it. That’s the gap of power. On the one side, people have knowledge, and on the other there is no knowledge, only feeling. Jean Baudrillard called it a case of dissuasion. It’s a very precise term: dissuasion is like a gift, but it isn’t a gift: it has a point, it’s ideology, it’s suggestion.

SLJ: Earlier you talked about how most aestheticization of the city and urban spaces, including illumination, are hidden behind political forces.

JH: I think it’s nearly an automatic process that political actors are interested in the nice illumination of a city, because the soft, nice image has the effect of deproblematizing the city and social life. That’s how it is in ideology. But it isn’t through rational intention; it’s the politicians’ feeling that this kind of illumination is good for grading down the escalation of political problems.

SLJ: So these attempts by cities to illuminate are more along the lines of beautification.

JH: Yes, that’s this kind of beautification and embellishment which is only interested in polishing the surface. But that’s not the case if contemporary artists are making their interventions in public space. That’s absolutely another category. Therefore I think it’s very important to have an exact look at different kinds of illumination. I showed some pictures that are evident in this sense of illumination made for the better functioning of cultural industry. But the last two pictures of art intervention are constructed out of a totally different language. They’re suggestions also, but not to make people conform: rather, to make people think about themselves and the city, their lives, and society.

SLJ: In your lecture, you talked about artificial illumination as always being against the backdrop of natural light. Can you say more about this, and how it might apply to Reykjavík?

JH: Man-made illumination is always a play, a game, with nature. You must use laws of nature. But especially in a place like this, you have to think about the interference, the interrelationships, between natural light and artificial light. It’s always the case that artificial light is only acceptable as a special event if you have a background of other lights. There is never artificial light without other artificial light! If you put illumination in an absolutely dark scene, it never makes any impression. I saw such an illumination last Christmas on a very little island in the North Sea. It was absolutely darkness in the village and only on one wall, there was a star that was illuminated. It was absolutely dead! Therefore, in general, artificial light is behind or in context with other artificial light. And here also it is in the context of natural light. It’s necessary to plan which interrelation is to be intended.

SLJ: As you know, the economic crisis in Iceland coincided with the shortening of the days and the diminishing natural light. Then suddenly the Christmas lights the city and individuals put up took on a different meaning and feeling than before. And these are just beautification measures! And the city left the lights up longer than usual, and individuals too have left their Christmas lights up so much longer. So perhaps there could be more receptivity in Reykjavík now for positive artistic illumination; maybe this deeper understanding of the beautifying potential of light can lead to an understanding of the potential value for illumination on another level.

JH: Yes, that’s right. You have also on the individual level the desire to make your habitation in a good atmosphere. There’s a wide variation according to culture—local culture, national culture—regarding this question of which role we wish from illumination in our location. Philosophers name this the desire for Umfriedung: that is, a type of making an emotional ring about the space inside which you want to live. And you can do it with lighting, or with a door or a window; it’s some arrangement that results in creating personal space. It’s a dark area this time of year, and so I can imagine that some people have the desire to make a warm light. And that’s connected. It’s a warm significance and a warm feeling. That’s a synaesthesia. I think it’s very important to think about the function of synaesthesias in lighting.