The basis for lighting must be a dark space. Thus, lighting is not objective, but rather subjective in two senses.
First of all, the person designing the lighting makes a subjective decision concerning the lighting concept and its aesthetic and technical goals, naturally co-operating with other designers. In other words, it is not about the inspiration given by objects to highlight them, but rather illuminating the space, which can be either large-scale or small in size, in order to balance it to form a psychologically, physiologically and architecturally functioning concept.
Secondly, the actual object of illumination is not the target, but rather the person who observes the surrounding space subjectively. The function of lighting is therefore to help the observer to form a real perception of the space, its architecture and foremost, the atmosphere.
Creating a lighting concept requires managing the instrument. Light as electromagnetic, invisible and immaterial radiation is no simple instrument. It is challenging to imagine light beyond a certain limit. After that, one must have the logic of a chess expert, in order to understand different multiplicative effects, which are already created by a single ray of light in the form of reflections and shadows.
Light is actually not a logical instrument to be systematically analysed or composed. As such, mastering the use of light requires the ability to process a visual entity in an emotional sense and letting go of logic. One might therefore conclude, that the aim of modern lighting architecture is to create the right kind of an atmosphere.
