The replacement of incandescent lighting with LEDs is now widely accepted in the home and has helped significantly reduce electricity consumption.

Theatrical lighting is now also undergoing this transition with the irreversible disappearance of the symbolic ‘spotlights’ and the advent of LEDs.

However, the use of this new technology raises a number of artistic questions, as LEDs produce a very different visual effect from traditional projectors. They require a new approach to colour: they are often saturated or, conversely, no longer perceptible. In addition, LED light is more diffuse and less directional due to the proliferation of small individual LEDs in the same projector, which changes the appearance of shadows, their hardness and their extent.

To support the transition to this new type of lighting and the possibilities it offers lighting designers, researchers in physics and the arts are implementing objective (eye tracking, colorimetry) and subjective (phenomenological assessment of textures and colours) measurement tools in order to achieve a satisfactory aesthetic quality and control the appearance of stage ‘objects’. The improvements that these researchers can make to LED projectors are linked to the human dimension, to perception and the processes of creation and reception.

Visit: https://lilliad.univ-lille.fr/xperium