Hatred of “the big light” has become a cultural phenomenon, but few feel quite as strongly about it as R. Jamin, a multidisciplinary artist working in LA and the author of The Cool Overhead Manifesto. In this text, Jamin explores the stark, unsettling nature of overhead lighting in all its cold, bleak intensity.
Below is an excerpt from ‘The Cool Overhead Manifesto’ by R. Jamin, released as a limited first edition that has since sold out. A wider edition is currently in development.
The first man-made fire:
If provided a catalyst, a flickering soul would reveal itself to be hidden in every body and object on earth.
Following this thread of logic, two rocks were smashed together with tremendous extractive force.
The acting hands remembered they were animal, that the hard gray things that made this lightning were mineral, and that the dry grasses that caught the flying heat and stretched it upwards into a little golden flame were vegetable. This beautiful trinity had created a bright burning fire, and was all that was required to maintain it. All of the sudden the night became warm, light, and safe. Matter had found a way to extract the remnants of the sun, which had kept small pieces of itself tucked away in everything that exists.
This collaboration between types of matter was the first small rebellion against the tyranny of the planet’s spin. Daytime was now infinite, patience to see the sun between thick clouds or over hills or even inside the home was no longer required. It was just enough to separate those hands from the hands of other animals, who know only how to scavenge, find, paw, survive. This creative act was uniquely human, the furthest distance yet reached from our scavenging origins.
Though there remained a single and important tether, which was that of consequence. Each light made had requirements, which came at great personal sacrifice, care, upkeep, and limitation. These consequences were as follows:
• Where there is light, there is also heat
• Where there is heat, there is the burning of fuel
• Where there is fuel, there is a hunt for resources
• Where there are limited resources, there is scarcity
• Where there is scarcity, there is the rare, the precious, and the sacred.
The constant upkeep of the communal fire became an essential and attentive task, like the care of a child. An integral aspect to the preservation of life itself, the labor required to maintain the light source served as a reminder of its importance. The direct connection of resource expenditure to immediate consequence –watching fuel burn into fire– supplied a direct and obvious correlation between cause and effect. The fire was a consequence of its own maintenance, and demanded protection. Therefore, the gift of light did not come without burden, particularly to the benefactor, who was reminded with consistency of the effort of this energetic expense. This first Promethean gift represented the initial rift between mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom, ushering the start of a superiority complex that would ultimately estrange the species from the nature of its origin. If humanity were to grow, both in size and in ambition, it would be completely contingent on an accessible and sustainable source of energy and fuel.
With the industrialization of humanity, new systems1 became invented to replace the last ones. Clay oil lamps with wicks replaced burning kindling. Then oil lamps2 became supplemented by solid candles. Commercially available and efficient coal and kerosene replaced the rustic solutions of our agricultural predecessors, which would later be replaced by coal-gas lines. At the end of the 19th century, the first gas discharge lamps became a novel symbol of the magic that scientific progress could create, but functioned little more than decoration. Eventually the mass advent of accessible electricity during the late 19th century surpassed all previous methods of artificial illumination, delivering the final death-blow to the “dark ages”. The future had arrived shiny and hotly glowing. But even after Mr. Edison filled the wealthiest houses with electric bulbs and oil-lamps and candles began their symbolic association with poverty and struggle (or else with the naivete of religion), humanity was reminded of the consequences of ease when the incandescent lightbulb threw out only an arm’s length of image and remained an expensive delicacy. Electric sockets were few and far between, and even the most modern home could only afford to run one (if lucky, maybe two) at a time. Ripe with inefficiencies, the newly founded electric bulb functioned more so as a symbolic harbinger of a new age of industry than an everyday solution.
Above all, even these brand new inventions could not escape their source. The very nature of the incandescent light is in its simulation of a fire– a filament is heated within a vacuum enclosure until it warmly glows, just like the sparks that leapt from stones and ate up sticks and kindling. Heat was emitted from these lights, so there was a persistent reminder of their origin in fuel, in scarcity, and therefore the sacred. As artificial light remained scarce, inefficient, and largely cost prohibitive, humanity was still largely reliant on a natural rhythm of dawn and dusk, and therefore still dependent on the initial throw the planet was given by an unspeakable and unknowable force. Every light was a costly miracle and a reminder that our species, however triumphant in industry, still was powerless below the greatest Mystery.
The lamp is the divine, an upheld sacrifice of time and energy made with the pure intention of navigating, foot after foot, through unknown and plentiful shadows. In line with the ideals of the Romantic3 era (a movement that had emerged as a counter to the bleakness of impending industrialization and the growing popularity of Rationalism and Materialism) the lamp and the candle provided a rich, ripe symbol for prescient themes of the movement– grand mysteries, a return to natural origins, spirituality, the fragility of human life, and most of all, beauty. With the future arriving quickly in the barrel of a steam-engine, the Industrial Revolution hastily tied the Romantics to the railroad track of progress. The new age of knowledge deemed belief in the sacred and mysterious as not only frivolous but completely superstitious and regressive. The metaphorical Enlightenment of the human mind was quickly preceded by the literal en-lightenment of the world. The post-Enlightenment thinkers, all of the Materialists, and their Age of Reason had triumphed successfully over now-antiquated reverence for Mystery. In the new age of the thinking man, rivers ran with industrial runoff, candles were for churches and churches were for the uneducated, and factories began populating cities like spring rabbits. To the man of the post-Enlightenment Industrial age, knowledge was more important than belief, and the needs of the worker were more significant than the needs of the soul4.
As industry grew, a new ease of life was revealed slowly by the dawn of scientific progression, which brought with it the unifying wash of electric lighting. At first, the electric bulb allowed the worker to extend their days beyond sunset. However, the original interior lighting of the workplace in these early years was still unable to mimic the effects of day. When interior artificial lighting was employed, the color temperature of electric lights remained distinct from that of cool-toned natural daylight. Incandescent bulbs emitted light that was familiar, the enclosed burn producing the same warm glow of the candle. However, the filament diverted the majority of energy used by the bulb away from the production of light towards the production of heat. With all of their technological advancements, this significant diversion of energy created inherent limitations on their brightness and efficiency. A new invention had to arise for modernity to finally free itself from the reign of the burning bush.
Characterized by overhead positioning and a cool, flat, ultra-bright luminosity, the Cool Overhead went where no light had gone before.
When referred henceforth, the Cool Overhead connotes any artificial light ≥ 3000K in temperature, with overhead “12 O’Clock” positioning and thoughtless, easy, and cheap installation, resulting in a subpar CRI and often also in flicker artifacts5. This combination of aesthetic factors results in a color temperature that attempts to imitate extreme noontime daylight conditions, while usually maintaining a quality of light that, unlike natural daylight, flattens objects and renders them dull, dimensionless, and colorless. The summation of these factors results in the Cool Overhead which has become so desperately estranged from its solar heritage and has cemented itself as a symbol of our modern age.
The proliferation6 of the Cool Overhead signified a new generation of public aesthetic culture, a point from which there would be no subsequent return. Not only did this new innovation allow spaces to become awash with a uniform level of brightness and without any blemishes of shadow, but it allowed a building to supply much more light using far less resources. Where the incandescent bulb relies on a heated filament, the Cool Overhead nearly entirely eliminates all heat, operating instead on Alternating Current power and therefore flickering at a supposedly undetectable rate. Newly efficient and free from the tyranny of its candle-lit origin, artificial light became capable of replicating the cool-tone of the midday sky. Upon first reaching the public sector, most early fluorescents were designed to deliberately showcase the bulb, which had become a symbol of technological innovation. As the novelty wore off and fluorescents became more and more prolific through the 20th century (coinciding with the rise of office buildings and larger municipal structures), new designs emerged to better hide or shade the bulb, often embedding it directly into the ceiling. Right from the onset, fluorescents were best used overhead– their design and shape, as well as their cost efficiency, lent best to a far throw and uniform and even distribution throughout a space below. Where the Cool Overheads shined, superfluous shadow was eliminated, and with it went the need to navigate the unknowable. Shadows had become as antiquated as mysticism and superstition – modern man preferred to know rather than to believe.
Never before in the history of humanity had there been two suns: one outdoors, the other indoors. The sun provided a great gift that prior man had never come close to mimicking: an impartial, persistent source of light fixed in the heavens that provided a cool-toned illumination. For obvious reasons, the sun provided proof of the divine hand across cultures and epochs since the beginning of epistemology itself. The natural cycles it offered determined our schedules, seasons, crops, and work patterns. The sun dictated our efficiency, and informed us when to rest and when to work. The sun cast its equanimous gaze upon all things, not distinguishing between the divisions that humanity often enforced upon other people, animals, and land.
When the Cool Overhead acted as a substitute for the world’s most essential and fundamental resource, humanity forgot the natural order of the celestial bodies. Halted indoors under an unending midday sky, the species experienced the first convincing disruption of natural circadian rhythms7. No longer spending the majority of daylight hours outdoors, the modern working person reluctantly accepted a daylight-toned substitute. In these contemporary houses of order and reason workers could ignore the previously stifling limitations of bodily fatigue and lend their respective field a seemingly infinite supply of productivity8. The workday, without natural signals of termination, could easily now extend itself beyond the boundaries of the terrestrial day. Each discrete moment maximized, the visible light spectrum hopelessly severed, every new bulb flickered with an almost unimaginable quickness, dividing each second into palatable rations of light.
In stark contrast to the deliberate illumination of singular objects, the Cool Overhead cast an equanimous glaze over objects en masse, unifying them into stuff. The supermarket became a prime example of this cast, an equal opportunity for every object to pattern and tile itself into infinity– the advent of ultimate excess. The infinite noon brought with it the illusion of unending abundance, a type of plenty characterized by its independence from temporal factors such as seasons or weather patterns. The stagnant light lingered on, flattening the previously capricious cycles of the earth. Each task, no longer requiring devoted and singular attention, became but one in a string of infinite tasks to be performed in linear succession until completion. Each vegetable, no longer subject to the whims of seasonality or weather, gleamed waxy and perfect in a pyramid of bright perpetuity. Each person, freed from shadow, became a watchful eye over everyone and everything, replacing humble belief with definite knowing.
The overall decline in society’s religiosity might appear to be a symptom of this cause. Religion has become associated with a method of antiquated life, a solution invented to explain questions before the advent of real science and knowledge. This is an unfortunate vestige of Materialist thinking that has persisted long past its original necessitation. However, the real discrepancy in modern society is not that of theism but of Fideism. Defined not by a belief in God but a belief in Belief itself, the Fidest philosophy upholds the need for faith, mystery, and divine unknowing as an essential aspect to a meaningful life. Fideism describes a philosophy based around the idea that belief and faith are absolutely required in all cases to understand certain truths in a way that reason cannot. Fideism is not an alternative to theism, but rather the epistemological umbrella that encompasses both the belief in God and/or a belief in anything oblique, mysterious, or unknowable. A Fideist way of life is not necessarily one of religious practice, though it can be. Religion can provide structure and context to an otherwise nebulous idea, which can be helpful in preserving a sense of internal order and meaning, as well as community. Regardless of the specifics of any specific creed or tradition (or lack thereof), a Fediest way of life is always one always of intentionality and respect towards shadow, both literal and figurative. The Cool Overhead is the ultimate opposition of Fideism, as it eliminates the need to venerate what we cannot see. Where a Fideist solution to shadow is reverent faith and contemplation, the Cool Overhead promises ultimate obliteration. Therefore, the Cool Overhead has managed to strip life of its finitude, and therefore, its poetry, by means of mass unification and an artificial infinity.
It is nearly impossible at this stage in its progression to eliminate the Cool Overhead from the spaces that it has conquered and come to represent. Its infiltration has spread to a degree in which it is impossible to avoid and destroying the Cool Overhead is far from the sole responsibility of the individual. However, the individual, if motivated to do so, retains the agency and will to protect themselves from the Cool Overhead epidemic that threatens to strip the world of poetry and sublimity. Those of us with any type of agency regarding lighting decisions should vow to take a humane and considerate approach. Whenever possible, domestic and personal lighting should at all costs stand in defiance to the afideism of the Cool Overhead. The tenants of this personal manifesto are as follows:
• Lighting should inspire the same awe and respect as the flint of its origin, and remain tied, at least in some subtle way, to the preciousness of its resource.
• Lighting should never become invisible, and should always, even if uncomfortable, slightly costly, or high maintenance, remind one of its presence.
• The Nighttime should remain aesthetically distinct from the Daytime.
• Shadows should retain adequate proliferation
• A domestic lamp should be something to navigate around, a factor within the room that adds deliberate light and shadow to a space and its architecture.
• Lighting should require maintenance or regular and deliberate turning on-and-off, by consequence remaining a mindful and careful act.
• Lighting should inspire devotional attention to all items or tasks in its presence.
• Lighting should never attempt to imitate that of the sun, neither in position (overhead, recessed) nor in tone (cool and bright).
Humanity does not run on efficient production; life functions instead as a series of slow and humane indulgences into poetry and beauty that fulfill basic needs. A single candle is no different- a simple solution to a simple problem. All that is required is a peace with the dark and a humble respect for mystery and shadow. Or better yet, a belief in something greater, perpetually evasive and unseen, that persists despite all attempts at obliteration.
1 David DiLaura, “A Brief History of Lighting,” Optics & Photonics News 19(9), 22-28 (2008).
2 Robins, F.W. The Story of the Lamp (and the Candle), The Antiquaries Journal, 1939-1940.
3 Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997. “The Roots of Romanticism.” Princeton, N.J. :Princeton University Press, 1999.
4 Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills. London: Routledge, 2002.
5 Davis, J., Hsieh, YH. & Lee, HC. “Humans perceive flicker artifacts at 500 Hz.” Sci Rep 5, 7861 (2015).
6 Bellis, Mary. “The History of Fluorescent Lights.” ThoughtCo. 2025.
7 Chen, R.; Tsai, M.-C.; Tsay,Y.-S. “Effect of Color Temperature and Illuminance on Psychology, Physiology, and Productivity.” Energy Consumption and Visual Comfort Optimization for Lighting Systems, 2022.
8 Veitch, Jennifer A. “Psychological Processes Influencing Lighting Quality.” Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 2001.
