(Europe) – BPA’s Martina Frattura is leading a new study looking at the psychological relationship between beauty and light.

Architectural lighting designer Martina Frattura has launched a new research project aimed at the relationship between light and beauty.

Frattura’s study, entitled A Beautiful Light is a ‘human-centred project’ that will aims to use artificial lighting ‘in its highest potential… that will go beyond the walls of studios, offices or universities, to get closer to the people’.

The study comes about after Frattura, an assistant lighting designer at BPA, noticed a dissonance between science and design, particularly regarding the effects of light exposure on the psychological health of any user of any space.

She started to look further into psychology and neurophysiology in order to gain more of an understanding on the deeper power of light – the most powerful tool to affect daily life, outside of personal events.

And as part of her research, Frattura is asking for participants to submit their ‘emblem of beauty’. “The reason behind this is to look for a trend in the physiological response of people to beauty,” said Frattura.

“For example, a person in front of a picture of their favourite town, or a woman staring at the most beautiful item she owns. Would they react the same way? Would their brain have the same electrical activity, or their body express the same level of arousal? To be able to identify a common ground on the subjective feeling of pleasantness that could later be used for deeper restoration.”

The second stage of the research will examine the definition of characteristics, such as direction, intensity, frequency, CCT, that a light stimulus, in a certain indoor environment, should have to be able to trigger a similar physiological response. For this, participants will look at three images and run a brief fast recall test while wearing a non-invasive, lightweight EEG and GSR device.

A Beautiful Light will span across Europe, and has already been confirmed in Bulgaria, Portugal, Iceland and Turkey, and Frattura is looking for more locations and participants. For more information, email martina.frattura@gmail.com.