In the Lighting Technology working group, we have several subjects and collections to research. Two members of the group are researching old Strand technology, and particularly the Strand Galaxy Nova lighting console. In this article, we give some interim results from our research. Written by Bastiaan Schoof.
On 4 April 2026, Bastiaan Schoof visited Controllux in the Netherlands. This is a company that is the Dutch distributor of ADB, Robe and a lot of other lighting brands. This company also used to be distributor for Strand for a very long time in the NL, Belgium and Luxembourg. And for a very short time, they were also the European distributor for Strand and Quartzcolor, between Genlite selling Strand and Philips buying it. Parts of Strand in Europe didn’t have an owner at that time, so Controlluxstepped in to help Strand out, becoming the owner of Strand in Europe for a short period of time.
At this time Enrico Daamen, one of the two bosses of Controllux and associate partner from Canon II, acquired a lot of material from Strand Germany, mainly because the German branch closed. This material included a lot of documentation fromStrand and other sources. All the inventory of the German Strand distributor went to the Netherlands in that time, in addition to the documentation and material Enrico already had because of his Benelux dealership.
Strand Galaxy at Controllux on the wall
After the German office ceased, Enrico stored most of this material in the Netherlands, and that is the reason we asked him to be an associate partner. He also has a small private collection of Strand and Quartzcolor equipment next to the equipment and documentation that is stored in his company.
When Chris van Goethem (BE) and Bastiaan Schoof (NL) visited Enrico in September 2025 to ask him if he wanted to join Canon II as associate partner, he also showed his private collection to us, including the documentation. This confirmed that he has a lot of interesting material for our research.
Strand Galaxy from Rose Bruford Collega at Plasa London
For the lighting technology working group from Canon, we were looking into information about the Strand Galaxy console. Bastiaan Schoof joined Nick Hunt (Rose Bruford, UK) in his research of this important lighting control, where a lot of control concepts were first made widely available that are still being used today. This was the reason to visit Enrico again and look into his documentation of Strand.
He showed a lot of paper files, in boxes and in drawers – but before he showed that, he first showed what he still had left from the Galaxy hardware. The operating part is hanging in the warehouse on the wall. He said he threw away the computers that came with it, “too bulky”. But, he still has the infra-red remote control for the Galaxy. That equipment looked brand new and never used. The remote consists of two receivers and a sender. Next to that, he also has a separate Galaxy floppy drive to save the shows. It has an M->D (Memory to Disc) and a D->M button. Nick recalls that after a long day’s (or night’s) programming, it was easy to confuse the two buttons, and great care was needed to avoid over-writing the Galaxy’s memory with the contents of an old disk.
After that he showed some of the Galaxy documentation from a filing cabinet. He had files with a lot of manuals (operator’s handbook, user’s handbook), and other documentation of all the Galaxy versions. There were a lot of technical drawings as well, mostly showing in detail the dimensions of the different consoles.
He even showed a kind of written manual from someone in Dutch about how to start and save shows, how to soft patch and “auto mod”. Next to English version, he also had some manuals in German (Systemkurzbeschreibung).
Also, there were some documents with information about where all the Galaxy consoles were installed. One list was called: Galaxy Installation Reference list” and it is from March 1983. Another list that also said “Company Confidential” showed it is from December 1986. That document also gives the number of channels for every console in that list.
I took photos of a lot of the manuals, papers and lists – documentation that tells a lot about the Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Galaxy 3 and Galaxy Nova. We definitely have to go back to see some of that in more detail.
We found a user in Nijmegen through the mention of a Galaxy 3 console in an article we found on our Canonbase repository from the Strand magazine Lights! In 1992. There was a photo of this user, and we were able to track him down and make contact all these years later. Enrico later showed the original quotation for the installation of the console in the photo. Often, historical research is about making connections that begin to tell the story of the past.
We also found the Circus Theatre in the Netherlands bought two Galaxy consoles:
Enrico also showed me some boxes labelled ADB Archive, but they also included many photos of Siemens lighting equipment (boards, dimmers, cables, cable runs, and so on) and photos from theatres, stages, neon signs, documents aboutBühnentechnische Tagung in 1977… It consists of about 24 large folders of photos.
Enrico said he had no relationship with Siemens, so he gave me the five boxes and I took them home. Mostly, the photos are from German theatres from Bremen, München, Salzburg, Berlin, Aachen, Krefeld, Köln, Baden Baden, Karlsruhe, Wupertal, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and so on. But also from Manilla, Madrid, Venice, Utrecht, Vienna, Graz, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague, etc. – too many to name them all here.
All photos are interesting, some are with the technicians, some also with the stage and a set on it (Aida in Cape Town) and some of models of a newly built theatre in Essen, as well as some photos from where Siemens installed neon tubes on the front of a theatre.
This archive looks like something that needs separate research. The first conclusion is that at that time this manufacturer delivered a system custom made to the fit control room where it was meant for. Also, the manufacturer appears to beresponsible for all the cable runs and installation of it. This looks like something to dive deeper into – there is always something new to explore!
Most photos are of really good quality, looking like they were made by professional photographers. It is a lot of work to digitalize, but it is worth it. We have asked the Allard Pierson Institute to ask for their advice on digitizing such images.
Some rough photos of the material can be found here – these are not the finished digital archive, but they give an impression: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nGuw3Kbrs7f76yq17
Work Package 5 – also referred to as the ‘data group’ – is a group of people who focus on the development and use of Canonbase. Canonbase is the database of the project, that maps and visualises the history of technical theatre in a new and innovative way; it is the main engine behind the CANON II project.
The database currently contains sources, historical events, people, theatres, equipment, manufacturers, methods and collections, and links them to each other and to other existing information sources.
By the end of Canon II, the data group’s main goal is to have an updated and tested data structure in Canonbase. By doing so, contributors can document lighting design, set design and lighting technology in the database, while also linking them to related lighting/setdesigners, productions, theatres etc.
Along with a new structure, the data group will develop new help pages, guidelines, tools and training materials or update existing ones to ensure users are well supported when contributing to the database. Finally, the data group will also work on elaborating queries, layouts, end-user tools and visualizations within Canonbase.
The further development of the Canonbase structure is based on the input from the other Work Packages. They define what kind of information they want to capture in the database and the data group translates this into a new structure. This results in new items, properties and value lists in Canonbase. During and between meetings, the new proposed structure is discussed and further worked on. Simultaneously the data group checks the existing structure and improves it where needed.
Over the past few months, the data group been working on developing a new structure for documenting scenography and lighting design in the database. As a result, new items, properties and value lists related to these fields have been created. So far, the main focus of the new structure has been on the relationship between a design and its designer, the production and other designs.
While updating and expanding the structure of Canonbase, the data group creates new help pages and guidelines on how to put things in the database and update existing ones. For example, the structure on documenting people (designers, architects, authors, etc.) was completely checked, this resulted in an updated help page on how to document people in Canonbase.
New help pages for documenting designs and productions were created (and are still being further developed).
Picture: Structure_brainstorm: a snippet from the online brainstorm board of the data group, where we try to pin down the new elements (items, properties and value lists) in the Canonbase structure.
Picture: Canon_image_ID: a snippet of the Canonbase page on the Taras Shevchenko Ukraine National Opera in Kiev (Q34041). The images showed are stored in the new repository and added to the page of the item via the property ‘Canon image ID’
Since the start of CANON II, the data group has been working on a new repository. Previously, images, videos, documents etc. were stored directly in Canonbase. However, due to some limitations, a decision was made to move them to a separate repository in WordPress. This new repository allows for larger amounts of storage and ensures that Canonbase continues to run smoothly (which could previously be a problem). After testing and writing guidelines, Chris van Goethem introduced the repository during the online project meeting in March. Now, the other project team members started uploading documents to the repository.
Picture: Canonbase_current_view: the current view of the Canonbase website of the National Theatre in Prague (Q12648).
Picture: Canonbase_new_view: a first look of a draft version for the new view of the website for the same item, the National Theatre in Prague (Q12648).
Finally, the data group has been working on a new block-based view of the Canonbase website. This redesigned structure aims to make the platform more visually attractive and significantly easier to read, especially for users who are less familiar with the Wikidata-structure on which Canonbase is built. In this new layout, related information is grouped into clear, coherent blocks. This allows to structure the diverse information in a more user-friendly way.
In the near future, the data group will continue to work on the new structure for documenting lighting design, set design, historical stock sets and lighting technology in Canonbase. Meanwhile, project team members from the other Work Packages will start testing theparts of the new structure that are already created in Canonbase. Aside from this, the data group is continuously improving the help pages, cleaning up the database, etc.
The members of the data group are Chris Van Goethem (RITCS, Belgium), Nick Hunt (Rose Bruford College, UK), Ondrej Svoboda (Czech Cultural Institute, Czech Republic), Jan Purkert (Czech Republic) and Emma Reynders (EhB, Belgium).
Scandlight was held in Stockholm from 7 to the 9 of June. It was three days packed with talks and workshops. Chris van Goethem (BE) and Bastiaan Schoof (NL) kicked off the first presentation on Sunday morning. In 20 minutes, they explained how Canon II came about and what the results have been so far.
This year’s Scandlight event once again brought together many lighting designers and lecturers from lighting design courses in countries all over the world including Sweden, Denmark, Canada, United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Finland.
At an earlier presentation at Cue in Rotterdam in January, we were able to explain what we had planned. Now, in Stockholm, we could already report that results that have been achieved. We described the work the project has done on a method of gathering information through interviews – a tailored approach to the established oral history technique. We have developed a special questionnaire for this purpose, with questions aimed at capturing information about individual practitioners and productions, as well as the working practices of the past. The method has been trialled through two test interviews, with more planned. We have also started working on two case studies to show how to research lighting designers through archives and other writings – one on Henry Irving and one on Henk van der Geest.
Emma Weil also came to Scandlight to give a presentation about her work. In it, she explained that she had once been the assistant to Hans-Åke Sjöquist, a well-known Swedish lighting designer who will be the subject of the Swedish case study in the Canon project. We asked Emma and she was happy to collaborate with us – when she saw Bastiaan and Chris’s presentation, she already thought it would be a good idea to work together, showing the benefit of showing our work while the project is still in progress.
During the Q&A session that followed the first three talks, a considerable number of questions were asked and answered. There seems to be a great deal of interest in the Canon II project!
In January 2026, after our first start-up Canon II meeting in Brussels, the team met again in Amsterdam. It was a chance to dive deeper into our research, exchange ideas, and visit a few fascinating institutions along the way, including our associate partner, the Allard Pierson museum.
We started with a visit to the Dutch National Opera & Ballet, where Cor van den Brink and Coen van der Hoeven welcomed us warmly. The lighting designers, working for the NO B lighting department, gave us a fascinating look at how opera lightings designs are documented in practice. We saw a wide variety of drawings, material lists, notebooks and photos, as well as the digital file structure used to store and reuse lighting designs. Later, we learned that this is actually a standard method used by many European opera houses.
Afterwards, we continued the discussion at the AHK Amsterdam – Academy of Theatre and Dance, where we met for a project meeting and reflected on what we had seen.
Next day we visited the Allard Pierson archive in Amsterdam Zuidoost. In a rather plain-looking building on the edge of the city, we were warmly welcomed by Lisa Lucassen and Gonneke Janssen, two collection specialists working with the Theatre Collection.
We split into two groups for a guided tour of the archive. Lisa and Gonnneke had already laid out some designs by Henk van der Geest for us, based on materials we had requested in advance. There was a lot to explore: drawings, lists, and original documentation, including th “PanCan” – a kind of moving mirror stage light. During the visit, we also looked at theatre spotlights from the collection and saw a book by Nicola Sabbatini.
Besides our own meetings at the AHK, one of the highlights for me was the visit of the Baron van Slingelandt model theatre at Allard Pierson museum. Made in the 18th-century as a chamber theatre of Baron van Slingelandt. This miniature stage was used in living rooms to demonstrate how theatre worked. With real set changes and lighting.
Artist Arne Hendriks has created his own version of the principles of the Slingelandt Theater that visitors can touch, explore and work with themselves. It was a great reminder that theatre heritage is not only something to preserve, but also something to experience and keep alive.
When it comes to documenting objects, the topic of 3D scanning is becoming increasingly interesting. Canon II is checking the feasibility of these option.
Smartphone apps make this technology accessible to virtually everyone, even without the need for expensive specialist equipment. Owners of newer models of Apple’s iPhone or iPad also benefit from a built-in LiDAR sensor, which greatly improves the spatial capture of objects.
Whilst this technology has worked flawlessly for sculptures, for example, even in public spaces, it does have certain limitations regarding the size and exact nature of objects.
As part of the scenography documentation, an attempt was made to capture a 1:20 scale model of a stage set. Several attempts were made using both an iPhone 17 Pro and an iPad M5 with the PolyCam app. Unfortunately, the result was disappointing.
The model measures approx. 60x60cm and is approx. 80cm high. So, in fact, a size that usually causes no problems whatsoever. Other scans of objects approx. 10cm in size were successful. It only becomes somewhat difficult below that, but down to a minimum of 5cm, the results were quite satisfactory.
The problems here can probably be identified as follows:
1. The stage set was constructed from glossy black cardboard. Black surfaces generally pose significant problems for systems that use autofocus. The glossy finish further exacerbates the issue, making it almost impossible for the camera technology to focus correctly. A highly reflective surface (e.g. porcelain) would have been doomed to failure from the outset. Mirrored surfaces are completely out of the question.
2. The example stage set consists of around 30 small tables suspended by ropes in the centre of the stage area. Here too, it was evidently very difficult for the sensor and the autofocus to make precise measurements. It was to be expected that the wafer-thin ropes would not be detected. However, the jumble of chairs evidently caused further ‘confusion’.
Although it is possible to get very close to the object with a smartphone and the standard macro mode can also focus at this close range, the whole scene was evidently too complex.
The scan of a single table attached to a thin wire (diameter approx. 2 mm), on the other hand, worked perfectly. The small chair is only approx. 5×8 cm wide.
The closer the measuring device has to get to the object, the more important it is to determine its position with true precision. However, this does not appear to be as precise as would be desirable for this purpose, meaning that potential measurement errors have a significant negative impact.
The closer the measuring device has to be to the object, the more important it is to determine its position with true precision. However, this does not appear to be as accurate as would be desirable, meaning that potential measurement errors have a significant negative impact on the final result.
Although this has not been conclusively proven, experience suggests that a minimum distance of at least 20 cm is advantageous.
Further tests will follow. These will then use far less intricate examples. Moreover, even without testing, it is clear that scanning individual parts will certainly be successful. In the aforementioned example, however, dismantling was out of the question. Unfortunately, this applies to many models where the design is so intricately complex.
There is some hope that it will be possible to carry out at least a rough spatial scan and then scan the individual elements separately. It would then be possible to arrange these individual scans correctly within the overall scan and thus replace it. However, this requires some basic knowledge of 3D software and a considerable investment of time. For regular collections, this option is certainly out of the question.
This technology is therefore primarily suitable for relatively solid objects with little to no intricate detail, where there is a good chance that no or only minimal post-processing will be required. The freeware Blender is certainly worth considering for this purpose, as it also allows export to web-compatible 3D formats.
The Sketchfab platform features numerous examples of objects from museums around the world. In some cases, a download is possible, but in all cases, the object can generally be viewed in three dimensions either in a web browser or – if available – directly in virtual space using VR glasses. With regard to stage design models, this naturally also means that one can ‘walk around’ the stage and explore it accordingly. This is an aspect that is also very exciting for the design process and communication with the director and stage technicians.
For scenographers currently active in the field, however, general 3D modelling is also becoming more important than physical model-making.
When it comes to scanning lighting equipment, we encounter similar problems on the one hand, but also additional challenges. Here too, we are mostly dealing with black, and in some cases glossy, surfaces.
Furthermore, older devices in particular often feature very delicate components that are not only permanently fixed but also difficult to access.Last but not least, the interior of the devices is also of great interest for documentation and research. You hardly get access to it even with a relatively small device. Endoscopic technology will be necessary here.
Dr. Stefan Gräbener, april 20th, 2026
3D-scan of set-model with PolyCam on iPhone17pro and iPadM5, optimized in Blender 5.1
3 versions with different settings
3D-scan of table-model with PolyCam on iPhone17pro, optimized in Blender 5.1
Links
Blender
Examples of 3D-Scans at Sketchfab:
Theatre Dress
Toy Theatre – Sörmlands Museum
Set-Design-Model_ PARSIFAL, the enchanted garden of Klingsor
WolkenApparat
Bogenlampen-Scheinwerfer
Shakespeare in Berlin
Report on the CANON II lecture at CUE by Isabel Nielen from the Netherlands.
On Wednesday 14 January at CUE 2026, Bastiaan Schoof (NL) and Chris van Goethem (BE) gave a lecture on CANON II: preserving the heritage of lighting designers, set designers and theatre technology.
How can a company or designer preserve their legacy digitally in a sustainable way? Why should we keep records? And how do you store them so that they remain accessible in the future?
During the lecture, it emerged that CANON II had grown out of an earlier international project, namely CANON – THE HISTORY OF THEATRE TECHNOLOGY. The aim was to raise awareness and understanding of the history of theatre technology in Europe.
If the history of theatre technology is not documented and preserved, a great deal of knowledge and experience will be lost. Because technology is constantly evolving and the people who still have experience with old techniques are literally dying out. How, then, can one understand the historical context or the lighting designs of theatre productions if one does not know how the technology worked at that time? Furthermore, many technical collections are in private ownership; it is important that a place is established, such as an open database, to ensure these collections are not lost and can be made available for study and research.
The CANON I outputs included 100 ‘stories’ of the most significant practices, technologies, individuals, places, artefacts and buildings from the history of theatre technology.
The CANON I results can be found on the website. And on the CANON I database
What is CANON II about?
CANON II is a three-year Erasmus+ project funded by the E
uropean Union. It investigates how we can preserve lighting and set designs, along with the associated technology, for the future. The CANON II research project focuses on lighting design, lighting equipment and set design. Four case studies will be examinedand developed for each topic. The existing Canon database will be updated, expanded and made more accessible to the public. At the same time, we are developing guidelines on how to document these elements, so that the Canon database can continue to grow even after this project has ended.
Who is involved?
The project is supported by the following project partners:
Erasmus University College Brussels, Belgium
Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, United Kingdom
Svensk Teaterteknisk Förening, Sweden
Institut Umeni Divadelni Ustav, Czech Republic
Stichting Instituut Lichtontwerpen, Netherlands
In addition, there are many associated partners involved across the various countries
You can’t put light in a box!
How exactly to document lighting design is the subject of this research. Light is quite elusive and, regardless of the technical implementation, it is more than just the number of lights or a percentage. Light creates atmosphere and emotion; to understand a realised lighting design, you need context regarding the location, the space and the direction. In practice, it appears that lighting designers do little or no archiving for the future. Digital files are no longer usable or readable after a few years. Archives are private or scattered and not organised according to our field. Furthermore, archives are not always accessible. It is much easier to archive documents and objects than lighting designs and stage sets. Often, the press photos of a production are close-ups that do not give a good impression of the entire stage set.
As an example, Bastiaan showed two photos of the lighting design by Henk van der Geest for ‘Le Figaro’ – one a publicity photo taken from the wings, where no audience member saw the production from, and the other the audience’s view. A good press photo often captures details of a performance, whereas for a picture of the lighting design, it’s better to see the whole stage.
Why are we doing this, and for whom?
We are undertaking this project because it is important to document and catalogue developments in the theatre sector. Not only the technical aspects, but also the creative side of the field. Many contemporary developments stem from the past. History teaches us about the present and provides perspective and context for the future.
For example: why were so many theatres destroyed by fire (around that time)? It was due to the rise of gas lighting! New technology brings about change.
The database will be made public and can be used by professionals, students, teachers, collectors and other archives. The aim is to make it easier to find information and link it to other archives and information sources. In doing so, it is important to look beyond national borders.
Archiving makes room for new insights
Chris showed an image of a lighting design from the Allard Pierson Museum’s archive. In it, the design is laid out entirely like a musical score. It was the lighting script for *Poppetgom* by Scarabee. That’s another way to do it!
A fine example of a lighting design that you wouldn’t immediately expect to see presented in this way.
What exactly are we going to do?
Please let people in the field know about this research project!
At the end of the talk, a public appeal was made regarding the Stichter table. Chris found the light table in an archive but doesn’t know how it works. The audience was asked if anyone had ever worked on this table or knew someone who had? And it turned out that among those present, there were about four people who had worked with a Stichter table in the past!
The lecture ended with an appeal to anyone who might still have historical or recent theatre materials stored away in an attic or shed somewhere: please feel free to get in touch!
Chris van Goethem – chris.van.goethem@ehb.be
Bastiaan Schoof – bastiaan.schoof@ahk.nl
Cue 2026 is the leading theatre technology trade fair in the Netherlands. On the exhibition floor, you’ll find everything related to theatre technology in the fields of lighting, sound and stage design. There is also a program of talks lezingen programma.
Jan Lazardzig / Bri Newesely / Kerstin Wittmann-Englert / Franziska Ritter / Halvard Schommartz / Marie-Charlott Schube (eds.)
17 × 24 cm, 304 pages, 80 colour illustrations ISBN 978-3-98612-083-2
As public buildings, theatres are a prominent arena for ideological conflicts, social issues and societal representations. This book is the first to examine 20th-century theatre architecture as an object of knowledge, asking how our knowledge of theatre architecture and stage technology was produced, disseminated and shaped. The authors approach the topic using various objects and discourses, from architectural education and cultural heritage to architectural photography.
Theatre construction knowledge has a social, institutional and infrastructural context.
For the interdisciplinary DFG research project ‘Theatre Building Knowledge’, the results of which are presented in this volume, such a situational context of knowledge is given in two senses: on the one hand, through the perspective of theatre building as an ‘epistemic object’, i.e. an object towards which a specific desire for knowledge or insight is directed. On the other hand, through the collection context itself, in which the materials and media are located.
A central focus of the project is the theatre construction collection at the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin (see also BTR Special Edition 2018). It represents a collection of objects and knowledge relating to theatre construction and stage technology that is probably unique in the world and today comprises materials from the 1920s to the 1980s on over 500 theatre buildings in Germany, Austria, France, Slovenia, Poland, Czechia and Russia. In three main layers of holdings with a total of over 5,000 objects, the collection documents the innovations in theatre construction of the 1920s and 1930s, shows the new construction and renovation measures
during the Nazi era, and provides comprehensive insight into the architectural plans of West German post-war modernism. At the same time, it provides information about the standardisation and institutionalisation of theatre construction knowledge in the course of the 20th century.
A central part of the TU Berlin’s theatre construction collection originates from a documentation project commissioned by Albert Speer in 1939 in his capacity as “General Building Inspector for
the Reich Capital Berlin” (GBI): The plan was to produce a comprehensive handbook entitled ‘Das Deutsche Theater’ (The German Theatre).
By 1943, some 375 theatre buildings in the German Reich had been photographed and recorded using a questionnaire. Speer commissioned Berlin-based building researcher Theodor von Lüpke (1873–1961) and a team of architects, draughtsmen and an art historian to carry out this publication project. Work on the handbook was discontinued in 1944 shortly before completion, and the work remained unpublished.
The second part of this book is devoted to individual objects from the TU Berlin’s theatre architecture collection. In twenty-one individual analyses, epistemic aspects are examined, always based on the materiality and mediality of the objects. The photograph on the cover of this book also comes from the theatre architecture collection. It is a photograph of the auditorium of the “Gautheater Westmark‘ in Saarbrücken (architect: Paul Baumgarten), built between 1936 and 1938, taken by photographer Emil Leitner for the handbook ’Das Deutsche Theater‘ (The German Theatre). The view falls diagonally through the ’Führer’s box” onto the stage portal. The photograph, mounted on cardboard and marked with pencil marks in preparation for printing, thus bears witness in several ways to the appropriation and ideological transformation of traditional theatre building forms under National Socialism.
This book focuses on the political implications of epistemic shifts and transformations in theatre architecture knowledge in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In their webinar series archiving for Dummies Podiumkunst.net invited Erin Lee (Head of Archive, National Theatre London) en Thomas Peeters (Coördinator Archief, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen) to talk about their approach and experiences. They show you how to integrate archiving smartly and feasibly into your organisation’s workflow and give practical tips you can start using right away.
More information at Podiumkunst.net
On February 28, 2025, Chris van Goethem and Bastiaan Schoof presented the Canon II project at the symposium “100 Years of Theatre Collection” at the Allard Pierson museum in Amsterdam.
All speakers discussed the past and present of this collection, while also looking to the future. Chris and Bastiaan talked about how to document the invisible. “You can’t archive light in a box”, Chris told the audience.
We had 10 minutes to explain our approach, which was quite a short time. However, Chris and Bastiaan managed to capture the audience’s interest, and we received many questions after our talk.
Here, we also announced that we had received our funding from the EU. Allard Pierson and Podiumkunst.net offered to assist us, inviting us to their archive for future Canon II meetings in Amsterdam.
In Oktober 2024, iLo (Institute of Lightdesign) invited Chris van Goethem to talk about the Canon II project to the iLo audience. The talks are mostly attended by lightdesigners, light experts, scenographers, students and teachers. This time we specially invited some researchers from Allard Pierson, the Theatre Collection and Podiumkunst.net. So, there was quite a mixed audience from designers, technicians and even a specialist in Vectorworks drawing.
With all these specialists attending, we had a nice and also deeper conversation about archiving, saving designs, what could be saved and what would be the problems with it. The subject was discussed on different sides. The collection specialist who archived Henk van der Geest his archive, also attended. Henk van der Geest is the founder of iLo, he passed away in 2019. After his death 40 meters of Henk his archive was brought to the theatre collection of Allard Pierson.
At that time, we did not know yet if the EU would finance us. Canon II could only be funded if there was budget left. Still, we wanted to focus our attention on the subject to keep it alive and to see what the interest was in the field. Because of that talk, we got an invitation to talk about Canon II at the symposium 100 years theatre collection from the Allard Pierson.
The talk was also published on the website theaterkrant.nl: https://www.theaterkrant.nl/nieuws/bijeenkomst-over-archiveren-voor-lichtontwerpers/
