After modern brightness: Ecologies of light

The ME 94 lamp designed by Marianne Brandt in 1926 is a technical object. It is materialised through complex intersections of scientific and technological developments, corporate capitalism, cultural changes propelled by mass production and advertising, and environmental transformations connected to Germany's electrification.

A century later, much has changed, but the consequences of industrialisation—the tentacles of modernity—continue to influence us today. We take electricity and modern comforts for granted, however, black-outs reveal how material dependencies persist. The electrical grid has become so enmeshed with our lives that we rarely consider the power outlets, conduits, and towers surrounding us. This exhibition materialises the grid by focusing on key environments where electrical light is produced, distributed, and used. Not only the ME 94 lamp but also the cultural and socio-technical contexts through which it emerges are a product of design. From ventilation holes on Brandt's lamp to externalised environmental costs of energy production, this exhibition directs attention to hidden narratives of modern brightness.

A tightly networked geography runs through this new exhibition. Sites such as Dessau, Zschornewitz, Berlin, and Weißwasser are connected through flows of extraction, production, and consumption. Localities like the mine, street, and laboratory are archetypal to electricity's histories.

What does relating to modern brightness mean today? The health risks of continuous artificial light exposure are widespread and well-documented, for humans and for other species. Nonetheless, our relationship to artificial illumination has become more intimate than ever before. The contradictions at the heart of modern brightness persist: promises of progress and improved living conditions shadowed by unintended consequences that continue to shape us and our environments.

After modern Brightness: Ecologies of Light is a collective work developed by an international group of architects, designers, curators and researchers as part of the 2025 edition of the Bauhaus Lab programme in Global Modernism Studies. The Bauhaus Lab 2025 participants are: Valena Ammon, Sofia Boarino, Benton Ching, Dominik Hoehn, Jorge Marinho, Sofía Nercasseau Gibson, Alina Paias, Lily Chishan Wong, with the support of Regina Bittner and Philipp Sack (Bauhaus Dessau Foundation/Academy).

In a symposium preceding the exhibition opening, the programme participants will discuss together with guest speakers Dehlia Hannah (University of Copenhagen), M Anusas (Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh) and Annette Jael Lehmann (Freie Universität Berlin, metaLAB(at)Berlin & Harvard) facets of modern brightness' controversial nature, thus assessing the question: Could there be a future of designed light that counters the disruptions to biorhythms, ecosystems and life cycles caused by omnipotent brightness?