Photons of Culture - Getting inspired by history and space in the design of light interactive experiences

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THESIS of Simona Conti
SUPERVISORS: prof. Patrizia Marti & prof. Kees Overbeeke
Master in Design of Communication Environments 
 University of Siena
Academic Year 2010/11 
// GETTING INSPIRED BY HISTORY AND SPACE IN THE 
DESIGN OF LIGHT INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
/ PHOTONS OF 
CULTURE
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 INTRODUC-
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The aim of this thesis is to investigate and reflect 
on the value and role of designing in specific con-
texts as a learning process. How can the fact of 
being immersed in a peculiar site influence and 
shape a design process?  What kind of didactic 
experience can rise from a context-centred ap-
proach to design?
To answer these questions I will use as a case 
study, the design of an interactive light installation 
created into a specific historical place crammed 
with cultural meaning: the ancient hospital of 
Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, today one of the 
most remarkable museums in Italy’s rich heritage.
From 26th of February until 16th of March 2011 
I participated in “Light through Culture”, a design 
school that took place at Santa Maria della Scala, 
involving six master students from the Technische 
Universiteit of Eindhoven (TU/e), Industrial De-
sign Department, and six master students from 
the University of Siena, Engineering Department 
and Communication Sciences Department., to-
gether with some faculties from both universities. 
Specifically, the first level of the huge building of 
Santa Maria della Scala housed the design school 
in fascinating spaces, flanked by a covered inner 
street called Chiasso di Sant’ Ansano. During the 
past, that street represented the vibrating cen-
tre of the whole building: every day craftsmen, 
monks, traders and so on, passed through there 
and gave life to the great hospital institution of 
Santa Maria della Scala. But that inner street con-
stituted also one appendix of a long pilgrimage 
route crossing Europe from North to South: the 
ancient Via Francigena. 
From the early Middle Ages, thousands of pil-
grims from all over Europe consistently strayed to 
Rome through Via Francigena. Rome was (and still 
is) one of the major centres of Christianity, and 
there pilgrims wanted to go to finally expiate their 
sins and receive indulgence by the Pope. During 
the Middle Ages, doing a pilgrimage was difficult 
and risky but the motivation was strong enough 
to make that the whole effort was worth it. 
The ancient hospital of Santa Maria della Sca-
la was one of the mansiones, that is to say the 
historical places of rest, located along Via Fran-
cigena: travellers and pilgrims where hosted and 
given a place to sleep and food to regain energy 
to follow their travel.
The aim of “Light through Culture” design school, 
was to unveil and give light to this cultural herit-
age hidden in Santa Maria della Scala. Students 
were divided in four groups and were asked to 
create interactive light installations connected to 
the phenomenon of pilgrimage through Via Fran-
cigena and its link with the spaces of the first level  
of Santa Maria della Scala. Each design group had 
the assignment to design one of four physically 
connected spaces (dark corridors, a room used as  
a morgue of the hospital, an ossuary and a room 
with an ancient washing facility) using innovative 
lighting technologies.
The final objective was to shape a path that 
visitors could have experienced as something 
continuous and not fragmented. A  real narrative 
path, with a start, a development and an end.
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For this purpose, a first opening space was 
created by a team constituted by professors and 
tutors from both universities. This first space had 
the objective of furnishing an introductory frame-
work that should have helped visitors to experi-
ence the whole “journey” through the four spac-
es as something fluid and seamless. 
The designed path was also meant to be experi-
enced with the whole body: moving around the 
spaces, and interacting with them would have 
changed its appearance and consequently its 
meaning. All the projects were exhibited on 12th 
of March 2011 just for few school classes and 
then on 16th March 2011 for the broad public, in 
occasion of the commemoration of 150 years of 
unity of Italy.
“Light through Culture” was a school of design but 
also a didactic experiment: breaking the walls of 
academic rigidity based on a frontal and aseptic 
approach,  this school proposed and explored a 
new didactic modality based on being-in-context 
and physically explore that context to have a 
better understanding of it.
I specifically took part in the design of the dark 
corridors, teaming with two other students from 
both University of Siena and Technische Univer-
siteit of Eindhoven. The account of this specific 
design process will constitute the case study of 
this thesis. What I will try to investigate is how 
being immersed and physically exploring those 
spaces represented the conditio sine qua non at 
the base of the whole project. Designing in con-
text constituted the unavoidable departing point 
to ideate lighting installations inherently connect-
ed to the space and its cultural heritage.
In chapter one, I will define a theoretical frame-
work based on the philosophical tradition of phe-
nomenology. This chapter is the essential basis 
of this thesis, since it defines the importance of 
the concept of “being-in-the-world” to extrapo-
late a meaning from it. Through the theories of 
phenomenological philosophers like Husserl, 
Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty I will explain why 
the role of the body in perception is essential to 
any understanding of the world. But understand-
ing the world is not just a matter of being passive-
ly immersed in it: as Nöe affirms, our perception 
of the world is determined by what we do and 
how we interact with it. This enactive approach 
to perception is fundamental to the spatial expe-
rience of some site-specific installations of art. 
The account of my  experience of one of Richard 
Serra’s installations will better define the notion 
of being-in-the-world and acting within it to have 
a better understanding.
Chapter two deals with the cultural aspects of 
“Light through Culture”. What is pilgrimage? Why 
did people start a so risky and difficult travel? 
What did they look for?
I will also describe the history and main charac-
teristics of Via Francigena and its connection with 
the ancient hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. I 
will finally describe the history and functions 
connected to the four spaces used as specific de-
sign context of “Light through Culture”.
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In chapter three I will define the technological aspects 
of the project and why light was the best medium to 
use in this specific design context. The concept of en-
lightenment and the unveiling qualities of light were 
two of the many reasons at the base of this specific 
choice. This chapter contains also a description of the 
lighting technologies at our disposal to design  light 
installations, and also a fairly rich benchmarking of 
other light interactive installations.
Finally, chapters one, two and three will converge into 
chapter four in the description of my case study: the 
design approach adopted to ideate light installations 
in the dark corridors. 
The physical and perceptual sphere of those spaces 
blended with their cultural dimension thanks to the 
mediation of lighting technologies. The design ap-
proach was inspired by the space and always reshaped 
and refined thanks to our “being-there”.
Culture and context-specificity overlapped in a com-
mon area from which design qualities were extrapo-
lated. These qualities constituted the foundation of 
the design and the link between physical experience 
of the space and hidden history to unveil.
In my conclusions, I will reflect on this kind of learning 
approach based on context-driven design.  What are 
the peculiar features of an educational model based 
on designing in context and reflecting through mak-
ing? What are its values and uniqueness?
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THEORETI-
CAL
 FRAME-
WORK
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sion of a specific location. 
Our design approach was based and informed by 
the principle of embodiment and embodied 
interaction with the world, that is to say acting 
through a physical manifestation of the world. 
This specific physical manifestation represented 
the main inspirer of the design of the final lighting 
installations and the first evaluation criterion for 
the effectiveness of the design itself.
To this end, this chapter will constitute the neces-
sary framework and philosophical foundation of 
my thesis, dealing with phenomenological theo-
ries of perception and the importance of move-
ment and physical presence (Heiddeger’s “being-
in-the-world”) to understand and get meaning 
from a space. By drawing on the phenomenologi-
cal tradition, I will explain the undeniable 
influence of space perception in design activities 
where space itself represents the object (not only 
the context and container) of intervention.
What I will argue is that in these kind of contexts 
first-hand experience of the space is the neces-
sary, if not unavoidable, departure point of the 
whole design activity.
The main and  most characterizing feature of the 
project “Light through Culture” was its unique and 
non-replicable context. All the design activities 
took place inside some historical spaces of the an-
cient hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, sited in 
Siena. The history of the place was a fundamental 
inspirer of the design of the installations, but the 
physical appearance and uniqueness of the spac-
es hosting those installations was even more cru-
cial for our design. Being immersed for two weeks 
in those ancient humid spaces made of bricks, 
narrow corridors, tiny tunnels of sandstone and 
even human bones belonging to people dead dur-
ing the Black Death plague of 1348, was inspiring 
by itself, not only for its undeniable cultural value, 
but also for its physical powerful presence.
Being immersed in those spaces was an utterly 
phenomenological experience. Thanks to our 
“being-there”, we could understand the qualities 
of those spaces and mix them with our design 
brief, is to say with aspects of culture and history 
of Santa Maria della Scala and pilgrimage. We 
walked through those spaces several times a day, 
we dwelled into them, explored their perceptual 
qualities (height, size, source of lights, details on 
the walls…) and so we managed to build a solid 
image of what was around us and, thus, this un-
doubtedly constituted the crucial element of this 
specific design context.
As already said in the introduction, the aim of 
this thesis is to investigate the role of space and 
physical perception as an important element to 
take into account in the design of narrative and 
cultural contents linked to the historical dimen-
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As physical beings, we are unavoidably 
enmeshed in a world of physical facts. We cannot escape 
the world of physical objects that we lift, sit on, and push 
around, nor the consequences of physical phenomena such 
as gravity, inertia, mass, and friction.
(Dourish 2004: 99)
According to a phenomenological perspective, 
our presence in the world is a presence as per-
ceivers of the world in the world. This means that 
we are essentially embodied subjects. According 
to Paul Dourish “Embodiment is the common way 
in which we encounter physical and social reality 
in the everyday world. Embodied phenomena are 
ones we encounter directly rather than abstract-
ly” (Dourish 2004:100). He gives also a definition 
of embodiment as the way in which we “possess 
and act through a physical manifestation in the 
world” (Dourish 2004:100)  and affirms that “em-
bodied phenomena are those that by their very 
nature occur in real time and real space” (Dourish 
2004:101).
In this sense embodiment is a matter of contin-
gent physical presence occurring in the world. It 
is not a passive condition, but it denotes a form 
of participative status. It is a direct contact with 
the world, and that contact takes form of active 
engagement with the things around us.
Our experience of the world is not of detachment 
or pure reasoning, but of active and physical pres-
ence and interaction with it. We perceive the 
world “as actual human beings who exist at a par-
ticular time an place, and who interact with their 
surrounding world from that position in space 
and time” (Matthews 2006:12). Being embodied 
means that experiencing the world is prior to any 
thought or scientific theory which try to explain 
it. In this sense, experience is first of all a ‘pre-
reflective’ activity and our thoughts of the world 
are rooted on the way in which we interact and 
inhabit our surrounding.
To be embodied means “being-in-the-world”, be-
ing utterly interwoven with it and experiencing 
its phenomena through our sensorial and bodily 
skills. Raw sensations like tastes, smells, sight, 
pains, sensation of temperature, sound and so 
on, are the basis of any phenomena of the world.
For this reason, to describe our bodily involve-
ment with the world, the French philosopher 
Merleau-Ponty suggests the notion of  ‘flesh’ or 
’carnal being’, in which ourselves and our world 
are not distinguished.
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BEING EMBODIED MEANS
BEING
THE
WORLD
IN