As promised, La Nuit Disparue, a story written and illustrated by Roger Narboni, is now available in the Dossiers area of our Portal. The idea of the Light Tales Competition the Fondazione Targetti launched a few days ago was just born from this original composition and from the 360 degrees passion for light of the French lighting designer. The contest is already showing itself to be a source of great satisfaction, beginning from the enthusiastic answer of the lighting community to an initiative that someone could maybe define unusual but that evidently has the merit of filling a gap. What is about it easy said: a literary “tenson” open to all (famous names or complete unknowns) but restricted to stories that speak of light in a creative way. So no essays or learned disquisitions, but novellas, poetries, plays, short stories…, that will be judged for originality, content and style. The three best works will be published on the Portale della Luce and disseminated through all appropriate channels starting with Anno Luce and the main lighting journals. It’s not over, because other initiatives conceived for the winners but addressed to all participants are now under consideration: the higher the quality of their works, indeed, the more interesting the opportunities of the Light Tales Competition! In the meantime, La Nuit Disparue can be a source of inspiration. The setting is a possible Paris, the year is 2055. The city was awash in dazzling light. The buildings’ façades, the streets, every public space and even the homes’ interiors form a scenery of changeable lights where the darkness, the night, the shadows themselves have no reason to exist, because not the people have the memory of them. Everything diffuses light, everything is open 24 hours a day. You have no perception of the flow of the day and the seasons. The harshest thing is that the new discoveries on the euphoriant power of the artificial light and on its properties of conditioning the human behaviour give the governments a powerful control tool that starts the establishment of a new regime. The description that Narboni makes of it is so precise and likely, at times, that it produces a certain anxiety. On the other hand, the present levels of light pollution, the scant respect for the environment, the daily infringements of the natural rhythms suggest as worrying prospects. After all this is the message the author wants to give us, being more conscious of the risks we are all exposed, none excepted. If anything, as a lighting designer Narboni feels more the weight of the responsibility, he consistently answers with his never excessive projects of urban lighting and, from today, with the narrative tool as well.. So La Nuit Disparue contains a warning, but also an epilogue that sounds as a reason of hope. Have a nice reading!
If you wish to partecipate in our contest, please send your works to Light Tales Competition Beatrice Santini Targetti Sankey Via Pratese, 164 50145 Firenze b.santini@targetti.it
The deadline is May 31, 2009. Works will be not returned
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