From Light and Dust

What is light? When you wake up every morning, open your curtains, and see that the day’s light has come again, it’s no big deal. For nature, however, it’s an important clue in controlling biological and physiological changes in life forms. Light controls plants’ growth and flowering hormones; it’s also linked to people's emotions, often causing irritability for no apparent reason. Other times it’s about the oversaturation of light and the dissonant, artificial light ubiquitous in modern life. Shot from a photographer’s point of view, the film intuitively seeks good light while also examining light’s existence from agricultural and cosmic perspectives.

"When we feel the power of light, adjusting and creating the environment to allow light’s visual functions and psychological requirements to merge into one, that is the realm we pursue." -Chou Lien

With “light” as its theme, the film seeks to create. Lin Hwai-min (reducing light pollution) raises the curtain as a prelude, followed by aesthetician Jiang Hsun, who discusses the relationship between natural light and farm crops, the main subject of the film’s first section. Next, lighting master Chou Lien visits Taipei Botanical Garden, sharing the basic principles of lighting design with others. Lastly, artists rediscover light's possibilities, and Chou Lien shows us what constitutes a good “light environment.” A choreographer dances in a field of chrysanthemums grown in artificial light and joins in a philosophical investigation of light and the environment.

This composite film experiment combines documentary, dance, and environmental theater. In addition to Lin Cheng-hsiu’s philosophical musings on the relationship between humans and light, it also touches on a choreographer’s interpretations of light.