Photographed between 2005-2010, Lux presents photographic portraits of (45) cities within the most brightly illuminated regions of the United States, Western Europe and Japan as seen on the 2002 NASA map of the night earth. These economically and politically powerful regions not only have long had the greatest impact on the night sky but this brightness reflects a dominant cumulative impact on the planet.

 

As this map has shifted in some dramatic ways since the project was undertaken and this version of the map composited, the project is less about the individual locations represented than it about their effective interchangeability and the global ramifications of consumption implied by these regions. Reflecting this, each photograph is titled simply Metropolis, accompanied by a notation of the city’s latitude and longitude, exhibited in groups and accompanied by a NASA map key to reconnect the singular to the global.

 

For most of human history, man-made light has signified hope and progress within local and global arenas. In this project, light also paradoxically denotes an index of the complex negative human impacts on the health and future of the planet.