Lighting Art and the Art of Lighting

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 from 8:30 am to Noon, Scott Rosenfeld will be leading a seminar on museum lighting at The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).  There is no cost to attend, please see the link below to register.   Sacramento is a 90 minutes by car from San Francisco ( if anyone is showing up early for AIC).
Lighting Art and the Art of Lighting
New energy efficient lighting sources are flooding the marketplace providing incredible new lighting tools along with new challenges.  Museums have become an important test bed for these lighting technologies because museums demand the highest quality and employ full time professional lighting staff that maintain quality over time. LED lighting sources, in particular, present museums with a fantastic opportunity to reduce energy consumption, improve the reliability of their lighting systems, and reconsider ideas about how light can improve the visitor’s experience while minimizing the damaging effects of light.   This talk provide an in depth discussion of museum lighting and show how these techniques can be used in a wide range of applications from retail to residential.
At the core of lighting design are the five fundamental controllable properties of light (intensity, angle, distribution, color and movement).  The presentation will include extensive visual examples showing how to manipulate each of these properties and then make lighting choices for exhibitions so they are better seen, understood and experienced.    Special attention will be given to developing criteria so lighting products can better match users specific needs.
Additional topics covered will include: a survey of LED lighting sources, how LEDs compare to legacy incandescent sources, how to access the color of light using mockups, how to access the color of light using metrics like CRI and CQS, how to utilize track lighting to its fullest potential and a review of lighting standards for light sensitive materials.
The presentation will use information gleaned from the Smithsonian American Art’s collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE).  The goal of the project with DOE was to match the quality of incandescent (and halogen) lighting fixtures using 100% LED technology.  The museum succeeded in reducing energy costs by 70% while preserving a very similar lighting quality as the legacy incandescent lighting.  The payback period, for the comparatively expensive LED lamps, was 16 months.  The collaboration with DOE also identified areas where LEDs need more development.  For example, unstable color and flicker in many of the MR-16 sources.  The session will also include the research derived from collaborations with The Getty Conservation Institute, The Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNA), The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),  and various units of the Smithsonian Institution.
Bio
Scott Rosenfeld has 22 years of service as a museum professional, since 1997 as the Lighting Designer at the  Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.  Mr. Rosenfeld  is the chair of the Museum Committee for the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and has lectured on museum lighting to many groups including PACCIN (Getty Museum with James Druzik), the Washington Conservation Guild (with Steven Weintraub), The U.S.DOE (CA & WA), The University of Florida, LightFair International (NY & NV).  Scott  is accredited as Lighting Certified (LC) with the NCQLP.
Scott Rosenfeld is Lighting Designer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.  Mr. Rosenfeld  is the chair of  IESNA’s Museum Standards Committee and has lectured on museum lighting to groups including PACCIN (Getty Museum with James Druzik), the Washington Conservation Guild (with Steven Weintraub), The US D.O.E. (CA & WA), The University of Florida, AIA (DC). and  LightFair  (NY & NV).  Scott  is accredited as Lighting Certified (LC) with the NCQLP.
Scott Rosenfeld is the lighting designer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.   Scott main interest is lighting museum collections so they can be better seen, experienced and preserved.  The advent of energy efficient LED lighting has led Scott to research how to measure and manipulate spectrum  to enhance vision and slow the degradation of light sensitive materials.  Other lighting projects include: The Hirshhorn Museum, The National Postal Museum, The Freer and Sackler Galleries, The Walters Art Museum and The Phillips Collection.  Scott is chair of the IESNA Museum and Art Gallery Committee.
Scott Rosenfeld, Lighting Designer, Smithsonian American Art Museum