Light Observation 6
1) Feb 16, ~10:30 PM; Winthrop University Hospital
2) Partially lit hallways
3) I was navigating the halls of the local hospital, of which I am completely unfamiliar. I was trying to find my way back to the entrance, and at each intersection of hallways I would look around to see if I could find clues to get back to the waiting room. It was the end of a long day and my contacts were getting fuzzy, so I wasn’t reading very well and had to rely on my memory of shapes and light to get me back. I noticed that my first instinct in my trip around the hallways was to take the most well-lit route. I was nervous about halls that weren’t well-lit. I felt like I had no place in being there. I got the same sense of nervousness when I passed under a section of lights that were off or had burned out. The trip made me think about how our sense of direction relies on light and how we can direct someone’s movement through the manipulation of light– even if the light never moves or changes. I also realized that visibility isn’t just an on/off switch that affects our understanding of the environment, but that varying levels of visibility can affect our emotional connection with our environment.