20/11 Lecture: How light instruments can help restore your mental energy

Highlight Delft and X focus on mental wellbeing by inviting Tom Bergman (Studio Tom) to present some of his beautiful light instruments. You can check out his objects and join this lecture on light instruments.

“Light instruments are a bit like music instruments except for that they create dynamic colorful light patterns. And just as for music the compositions are quite important. One goal for making compositions can be to optimize fascination. This will help your mental restoration and therefor prevent burnouts. The science behind this is researched by the TU/e for 3 years now. As humans want to understand and predict their environments, the complexity of the content is very important. If it is too simple people will understand quickly and judge it as boring. If the content is too complex it is hard to understand. Only the right complexity will lead to maximum effortless attention. This is key to mental restoration in a world with too much stress and an always-on lifestyle.”

Tom Bergman studied Physics and Chemistry at Leiden University and feels most at home interdisciplinary. He worked for many years at Philips Research as a principal scientist in many different areas. The last ten years lighting related. After starting Studio Tom, he focusses on making light instruments and creating content. A very interdisciplinary activity as it involves mechanics, optics, electronics, and software. The multidisciplinary aspect is what he likes best as well as the creativity that is necessary.

Most attention goes to creating content that will help people to relax and provide a mental restoration to prevent burnouts or just improve their mental wellbeing. Research on this is done in cooperation by the TU/e.

For more info on Studio Tom, check out his website.

Due to Covid-19 measures no events will take place after 18.00, therefore Highlight Delft is cancelled. The light instruments of Studio Tom however are still available in the Autumn Sparks pavilion near X. You can check out the mini exposition for free. You can find more info on Autumn Sparks here.

Enrolment

Click on the button to login with your Net ID, go to courses & events, and click Events. There you will see an overview of the upcoming Events. Pick the Event Lecture Light.

Did you enroll and are you last-minute unable to come to the lecture? Please let us know, so we can give your seat to someone else that is interested. When we’ve reached the maximum capacity and you are interested to be on the waiting list, you can e-mail the hosts: hosts-x@tudelft.nl

“Tom Bergman specializes in Light Instruments compositions for maximum fascination. In literature this is called effortless attention. This helps restore your mental energy comparable to watching a nice aquarium, but without the maintenance.”

Saturday 20/11 | 20:00-21:30 | Body & Mind | FREE!