For millions of years only dramatic shifts in terrain informed the reading of the earth’s surface from space. Now the cumulative light from highly urbanized areas creates a new type of information and understanding of the world that reflects human’s dominance over the planet. Christina Seely's Lux, titled after the system unit for measuring illumination, presents photographic portraits of cities within the most brightly illuminated regions on the NASA map of the night earth. This project is inspired by the disconnect between the immense beauty produced by human-made light and the complexity of what this light represents. Lux, focuses on cities in the United States, Western Europe and Japan. These economically and politically powerful regions not only have the greatest impact on the night sky but this brightness reflects a dominant cumulative impact on the planet. Collectively they emit approximately 45% of the world's CO2 and (along with China) act as the top consumers of electricity, energy and resources. In order to suggest the interchangeability of urbanization and the unilateral impact of these cities on the global environment each photographed location in the series, is indicated by the central latitude and longitude of the depicted city and is simply titled Metropolis. For most of human history, light has signified hope and progress. In Christina's project, light also paradoxically denotes regression or transgression - an index of the complex negative human impacts on the health and future of the planet.
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