Project Description
In Search of Dark Skies is a photographic project concerned with the interruptions that various forms of artificial light at night (ALAN) have on the human circadian rhythm and its personal effect on myself.
Most of us are familiar with air, water and land pollution, but unaware that light itself can also be a pollutant. According to one article in National Geographic, light pollution is “One of the most chronic environmental perturbations on Earth” (Drake 2019). Directly connected with overpopulation, errant light pollution both emits from and invades our homes where it can disrupt our sleep patterns leading to significant physical and psychological problems that are only just beginning to be understood.
Singapore, my country of residence, has been named as the country with the worst level of light pollution in the world, with the whole of the city-state registering at nine on the Bortle scale (Bortle 2001). Due to these immense levels, people in Singapore are unable to see 99.5% of all the stars present in the night sky. The possibility of seeing the Milky Way is precluded to all of Singapore.
Yet it is not just the artificial lighting from increasing urbanisation that is to blame. Excessive use of electronic devices, especially before bedtime, can have significant effects on both sleep quality and mental health. I have recently experienced this first-hand, suffering a non-epileptic seizure which has been partly attributed to sleep deprivation. This lowers the seizure threshold, making individuals more susceptible.
The undertaking of this project acted as a form of catharsis for my recent trauma by allowing me to confront my experience through visual expression. As such, the imagery conveys a sense of chaos and disruption, depicting the raw and visceral experience of a seizure and the impact of both light pollution and subsequent sleep deprivation on our psyche.
It is also a reaction against the fact that we are living in a world losing its connection to dark skies: “the tapestries into which our ancestors wove their star-studded stories, timed the planting and harvesting of crops, and deduced the physical laws governing the cosmos” (Drake 2019).