From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! Beginning this week, the stone chapel at the Thomas Jefferson University campus in East Falls will light up with exploding confetti, autumnal forests and schools of swimming koi. On select days for the next two weeks, the vaulted ceiling of the Ravenshill Chapel will act as a screen for digitally bitmapped video projections, allowing the designers to place different kinds of imagery precisely onto specific architectural elements.
The stone window frames can be one color, the stained-glass window shines with another. The barrels of the vaults will be bathed in a fog-covered lake or an oozing lava lamp. The project is an experiment.
Its six designers are Jefferson students from the “Lighting as Public Access” course taught by Lyn Godley, a light artist and professor of industrial design. The students are working with researchers at nearby St. Joseph’s University and Jefferson’s Center for Autism and Neurodiversity, who are studying environmental effects on people with autism.
The project inquires: Can immersive art environments have an impact on medical and neurological conditions ; and, if so, how? Olivia Dec, a senior architectural studies student at Thomas Jefferson University, controls one of six projectors filling Ravenhill Chapel with scenes of natural beauty and abstract designs. (Emma Lee/WHYY) Participants who experience the immersive light environ.
