Clémence Althabegoïty

This project investigates light pollution as a central environmental condition, examined through the lenses of art, design, and environmental history. Artificial lighting profoundly transforms nocturnal environments: it affects biodiversity, reshapes human perception of space and time, and reflects political, technological, and cultural choices embedded in infrastructures. By focusing on light as both a material and an atmospheric phenomenon, the research explores how the night has become an increasingly designed environment and how this transformation calls for renewed forms of ecological attention. 

A part of this research is historical and archival, drawing on collections at the Getty Research Institute and LACMA to examine how artists, designers, and architects in the American West have engaged with light, perception, landscape, and environment since the midtwentieth century. Another component is field-based and spatial, grounded in direct observation of nocturnal environments shaped by artificial lighting. Los Angeles County constitutes a particularly revealing terrain, where large-scale illumination produces intense skyglow extending across urban, coastal, and desert territories. This continuity between metropolitan infrastructures and surrounding landscapes allows light pollution to be examined as an environmental condition that exceeds administrative boundaries and reshapes entire ecosystems. Sites such as the Griffith Observatory foreground the tension between astronomical knowledge, public access to the night sky, and urban illumination. 

Conversations with networks connected to DarkSky International, situate the project within current scientific, regulatory, and territorial debates, connecting historical inquiry and field observation with ongoing efforts to protect dark skies. 

By situating light pollution at the intersection of environmental science, territorial governance, and cultural practice, this research aims to contribute to a shared field of knowledge that can inform designers, institutions, and public actors engaged with nighttime environments. Art and design are approached as mediating practices, capable of translating complex scientific and regulatory issues into perceptible, situated forms that foster debate, care, and imagination. 

The United States offers a decisive context for a research project on light pollution because it concentrates, at a large scale, the historical, technological, and cultural conditions that have shaped illuminated environments worldwide. At the same time, the US has played a key role in environmental awareness movements, where scientific research, public policy, activism, and cultural production intersect. 

Within this broader context, California occupies a particularly strategic position. The state brings together dense metropolitan regions, protected natural areas, observatories, and desert landscapes, allowing light pollution to be examined across highly contrasted ecological and territorial conditions. 

Los Angeles County offers an especially revealing case study. As one of the most illuminated metropolitan regions in the world, its nighttime glow extends far beyond the city itself, affecting surrounding mountains, coastlines, and desert ecosystems. This continuity between urban and non-urban environments makes visible how artificial lighting reshapes entire territories rather than isolated sites. The region also concentrates institutions, researchers, and cultural actors actively reflecting on these issues. The Griffith Observatory embodies the tension between astronomical knowledge, public education, and the realities of urban skyglow. 

The United States is also where the International Dark Sky Movement emerged and developed its most influential frameworks. Founded in the US, DarkSky International has played a pioneering role in defining standards for outdoor lighting, developing measurement tools, and promoting territorial designations that recognize darkness as environmental heritage. 

Engaging with these territories allows research to move between different scales – from metropolitan infrastructures to protected landscapes – and to connect archival perspectives on environmental design with contemporary strategies for managing light pollution. Conducting this work in the United States thus provides access to a mature ecosystem of knowledge, policy, and practice around nocturnal environments, while situating the research within an international conversation on ecology, perception, and environmental responsibility.