ABSTRACT
Since the close of the nineteenth century, the harnessing of electrons to produce electricity and light brought about radical new circumstances for architecture and associated media. Chapter 23 explores the development of illumination technologies and the buildings/sites that have shaped the creation of a vibrant nocturnal built environment. The focus is on the period from the 1980s to the present, which witnessed the rise of outdoor electronic billboards, media-façades, and the widespread use of computer-controlled imagery displayed through digital light-emitting-diodes (LEDs). It emphasizes the distinction between the networked nature of electric illumination and the site-specific characteristics of media incorporated into architecture. It also underscores the importance of understanding the contemporary developments in the history of electric light display. The chapter shows that the LED and its contemporary architectural manifestations at the turn of the 21st century have grown out of earlier experiments with incandescent light bulbs and other devices. They turn the walls and skins of buildings into something mutable, mobile, colorful and, perhaps most of all, integrated into far larger media transmissions of power and information.
