dim the light

Trying to dim the light was my weekly performance in daily life situations.

This performance was a crusade against the fluorescent lights in the city. The fluorescent lights are everywhere, impossible to escape from it. All the public places have big and powerful fluorescent lights. The trolley, the subway, the station, the class rooms, the TECC center (a building with 700 computers) ... It's everywhere! In every situation I could, I was asking to dim the lights. Sometimes they said me: "you can not dim, it's on or off" "Then off, please", I said "We can open the curtains", I suggested, "Let's try... Oh, that's so much better" they say and finally they are happy with the change. It's just a small and then so important change.

What happened to natural light ? Why people forgot it ? Why do you close the big windows to switch on fluorescent lamps ? There's too much light in our eyes, too much screens, too much. The excess of light and information will turn us all blind. Not sensitive to our surroundings. All the time plugged into machines. Before I didn't had internet at home, and now, I feel the effect of the wireless internet, all the wireless machines I use. I feel weak, tired, my head is about to explode. My eyes hurt so much. I have to close them, do not look, do not watch. When I arrive home I light just a small candle. Sometimes I light the fireplace. Even if it is a gas fake fireplace, it feels good to look at the movement of the fire.

We need to rest our eyes. I want to go to the ocean and just be there gazing at the blue, immersed in the movement and the sound of the waves, feel the ground. I remember when I was in the north of Finland last June, very close to the North Pole. In the summer there's no night. The sun just keep going, soft, never too high, never too strong. The midnight-sun light. A natural dimmed light, so warm, so gentle...