The LEDilemma

I create large-scale conceptual art projects that juxtapose light sources within each sculpture. My artistic work has ranged from shows at the Whitney Museum, museum and gallery exhibitions in the Hamptons and Chelsea in Manhattan, to Temples on the Playa at Burning Man
 
Bentley Meeker Lighting Staging Inc., my lighting design firm, consists of a spectacular team of designers who, over a 25-year period, have created countless installations (8,000 to 10,000 projects as a rough estimate) for clients with projects ranging from small private events in New York City to White House State dinners. 
 
It is from my position both as an artist and business owner that I want to address the use of LED technology. I categorically believe the current trend in modern illumination moving toward LED and fluorescent lighting is now, and will be proven over time, to be a patently dangerous one. Politicians and environmentalists who push for these types of light present a narrow view of the overall circumstances surrounding our relationship to light. The equation most often used to evaluate efficiency is a direct ratio of energy utilized and lumens emitted, a lumen-per-watt efficiency ratio, if you will. 
 
For all intents and purposes, LED and fluorescent are almost identical from a spectral standpoint. There is no discussion, however, about any of the behavioral traits and characteristics that are now occurring and will occur under such light over time. For example, if we illuminated our homes using the same light as in our offices, I think it’s fair to say that we’d be rather uncomfortable. As with most uncomfortable situations, at some point, we’d just plain leave. Who wants to be under that kind of light if they don’t have to? 
 
So if we go out more, most people would be driving more, consuming more, and utilizing more resources. If we add back in the environmental cost of the goods, the carbon-expended packaging and transporting of said goods, and then add the gas, oil, fluids, and wear and tear on our own cars, we’d have a resulting “phantom” carbon footprint that would easily outweigh the core premise of lumen-per-watt savings on electricity alone.
 
And as important as the carbon footprint is, we haven’t even addressed the major stuff—the intangibles—around such light like, say, happiness.
 
Those who advocate cheaper light do not necessarily take into account what they are asking us to sacrifice. The current conservationist trend is quite simply resulting in the elimination of spectrum. White, high-noon daylight is comprised of several million colors (I have seen some fixture manufacturers optimistically estimating it as high as 2,000,000,000.) Almost all of them are latent to the eye but available to us as humans and, most importantly, as souls. 
 
We have lived under daylight and firelight for 100,000 years or more. From an evolutionary standpoint as a species, it’s all we’ve ever known. When incandescent light came on the scene, it had similar spectral qualities to both firelight and daylight, falling somewhere in between the two in terms of colors represented. So as humans and, very importantly, as souls, we connect to incandescent light largely in the same way as we always have to natural light.
 
Where it gets sticky is when we are force fed light that has a distinct lack of spectrum. One can sit in a 5,500K fluorescent-lit office and feel a certain way, walk out into a 5,500K daylight environment of similar intensity and feel completely different. It’s not that the light we see is apparently different. The issue is that, with the fluorescent light, most of the light that would be there in daylight simply isn’t there. So there’s far less latent coloration, by a factor of thousands, or even tens of thousands, in LED and fluorescent light. That means there is simply less for us to connect to as humans, far, far less than there ever has been before.
 

The Light Within Me

 
Fluorescent and LED have very, very few, if any, colors beyond those that you see directly. We don’t connect to that light in any way whatsoever, which is, in my opinion and experience, why we detest those types of light as much as we do. I have not met one person who enjoys fluorescent light, although I have met many who enjoy their reduced electric bills at the end of the month.
 
Light is far more than visibility or a decorative afterthought. Light affects the way we think, how we live, how we treat one another, and how we love one another. In many practices and religions throughout the ages, souls are considered to be light. It is not far-fetched for me to believe that light might be affecting our souls even more than it affects our bodies. We connect to daylight because of all of the latent color that is baked into the few colors we actually see. Hence, full-spectrum light. We can see evidence of that when we break apart daylight with a prism and, under careful examination, see virtually all gradations of all colors. We see similar properties in incandescent, halogen, and in a very promising new technology, plasma. As humans, we connect to those full-spectrum sources of light. 
 
However, with “mono-spectrum” light, which is what I’ve been terming LED and fluorescent as of late, we don’t connect to anything on a soulful level at all. I firmly believe that there is an inevitable chasm that ensues within each of us in that environment. Recreating and exploring that chasm—that void, if you will—is the subject of my artistic work. It is the exploration of this space that will heighten our awareness, bringing each of us closer to light itself. 
 
It is worth thinking about those in the Pentagon approving missions, or those approving disaster relief claims, or those in politics and government deciding the fates of millions of people and the light under which they work. Government was an early adopter of fluorescent light. I have wondered out loud on numerous occasions what government would be like if there were full-spectrum lighting in work environments. How many lives would be made better?
 
Additionally, I think, over time, this mandated stampede toward mono-spectrum light represents a real generational healthcare issue for the overall population. As we are forced, through efficiency measures, to put CFL and LED technologies in our homes, there will be very little, if any, light that we can relate to. Computer screens, TVs, offices, and now homes will all be illuminated by mono-spectrum light. Those environments comprise a significant proportion of our waking lives. I strongly believe that fluorescent-lit offices have already caused a lot of the healthcare issues we’re experiencing today, either as a direct result of the light itself or indirectly through behavioral changes, i.e. to eating comfort food, drinking more alcohol, sugar consumption, and more. Compare the cost of a night in the hospital due to diabetes or other behavior-linked ailments with the pennies saved on an energy bill.
 
We in the lighting design and artistic communities have a real opportunity to shape a debate that the government is already currently dictating. Rather than chasing technology that may or may not have surpassed its societal usefulness and artistic viability, perhaps we could collectively take a look at what technology we use and why we use it. Do we use light in event settings for sensibility or are our choices dictated by cost-effectiveness? In our homes, have we really weighed the entire equation or has the allure of tangible savings lured us into creating an environment where we are now leaving our homes more often? 
 
We are at the beginning right now. In 20 years, we may be in a dramatically different place, and as such, a generation of innovation that takes into account our human and spiritual needs will have been lost forever.
 
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Bentley Meeker is a New York City-based artist, lighting designer, and owner of Bentley Meeker Lighting & Staging, Inc., a lighting design firm in Manhattan. His conceptual work is designed to inspire us to question how we experience various different properties of light. His art explores how light informs our emotional landscapes, as both human beings and as souls.