Page 8 of LUX.3 by Foscarini

012 caves at lascaux torches and lamps fired by combustible oils were thus the two principal artifacts used for lighting developed in thousands of variations of shapes and uses they remained the only ones in europe for the longest time at least until candles became liturgical instruments during the first christian era and slowly found a place in the home to brighten up both domestic and church interiors with arrays of simple candles or chiseled candelabras and precious candlesticks besides candles objects of light which more than any other are laden with devotional and votive significance antiquity soon witnessed the appearance of other lighting objects endowed with particular value symbolic or sacred objects like the olympic torch objects for communication like the signal system developed in greece to relay news in the second and third centuries before christ a luminous telegraphic system based on stations the alexandria lighthouse erected on the island of pharos which has left its name on all the guard towers along the sea coast is the mythical ancestor of an ample category of signaling devices the latest of which are the intermittent lights on the control towers in airports on skyscrapers and mountains luminous scouts for nighttime flights today we are surrounded by lights that function as signaling devices and speak the language of light from the display panels on our technical equipment to traffic lights to the sirens of emergency vehicles to sensor lights most of this array of tiny objects are leds diodes that emit light when electricity runs through them leds which have enormous application potential are used as indicators of electrical current in electronic devices in alphanumeric visualizers in car headlights on screens in street lighting ancient greece also invented theatre lighting during the performances which took place during the day oil lamps were used to create special effects the use of lighting in the theatre or for public events and celebrations increased after the fifteenth century with lamps fueled by vegetable or animal oil wax or tallow candles pine and resin torches in his lives vasari describes the machine made by brunelleschi for the feast of the annunciation in florence which used candles shielded by copper screens activated by springs that covered or uncovered the lights as required in 1560 in his dialogues leone de sommi describes theatre scenes with moving lighting systems that could be screened to diminish their intensity and even create total darkness the treatises by scenographers such as serlio and sabbatini are full of descriptions of similar inventions and mention the suggestive qualities of paper glass and painted canvas lights footlights are a seventeenth century invention and were used in theatre for a very long time the edge of the proscenium was lined with candles or lamps fueled with oil turpentine oil petroleum or other combustible matter in glass jars they are the precursors of the rainbow-colored electric lights that may be seen in so many films about the entertainment industry like the recent musical chicago by rob marshall the theatre also perfected special lighting effects such as lightning rainbows sunlight and moonlight moving clouds all achieved with the help of simple lights the lightning was provoked by intermittently switching the light on and off using mirrors to reverberate the flashes of light whereas crystal prisms were used to make rainbows entertainment with its compulsion to enchant and astonish was a great source of light-making inventions for example the ancient art of fireworks but it was the magical lantern a machine in the shape of a lantern that anticipated the cinematic light of our times with a light source shining inside an optical box the magical lantern projected giant magnified images into the world making them fluctuate before awestruck eyes like those of marcel proust who reminisces about it in the pages of his recherche gas lamps finally appeared in the nineteenth century allowing the intensity of the light to be controlled and were quickly followed by the electric light bulb which seems to overrule and invalidate any other system since then there has been a proliferation of 013

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