Ways to turn on a light
Turning on a light is a minor gesture. Or so we believe.
There is something intimate about that moment before the light comes on. The body moves forward into space. The arm stretches out. The wrist decides. Sometimes it turns. Sometimes it is the fingers that do the work. And then it happens: the room appears.
If contemporary dance has taught us anything, it is that there are no neutral movements. Every gesture, however small, occupies a place in space and time. Turning on a lamp is also that: a domestic micro-choreography, repeated thousands of times, almost always without an audience, but no less precise for that.
Aristotle said that habit is second nature. Turning on a light is just that. We learn it early on, incorporate it into our bodies and execute it without thinking. But, as with any automated movement, it only takes a second to realise that it is not just any gesture. It is a physical decision. A direct relationship between body, object and space.
“But not all switches require the same movement.
And not all movements tell the same story.”
The rotary switch, for example, takes time. Turning it requires intention. It is not a sharp click or an immediate command. It is a circular movement in which the hand accompanies the mechanism and, during that suspended second, the body actively participates in turning it on. There is something almost choreographic about that turn: reminiscent of other domestic objects, such as radio dials or kitchen stove knobs.
The rounded, actionable handle belongs to another bodily vocabulary. It is precise, direct, elegant. A brief gesture in which gravity intervenes. With a finger and a little pressure, the click comes as confirmation of the movement. That little noise is proof that something has happened. Like the closing of a piece of jewellery. The body receives an immediate response when the light comes on.
Both gestures, turning and activating, speak of different ways of inhabiting space. Of how we enter a room, of how we activate the scene.
At Fontini, switches are small everyday devices that translate movement into atmosphere through an intimate choreography.
