Award ceremony - Prix Optimus

Street lamps, illuminated buildings, brightly lit shop windows: artificial light is indispensable to humans. However, ALAN (‘artificial light at night’) poses a threat to insects and ecosystem functions. The ‘ALANart’ project, which has won this year’s Optimus Agora Prize from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), is dedicated to this issue. An immersive art installation brings to life how nocturnal insects have to cope with the brightness. The project involves Janine Bolliger, Nicola van Koppenhagen and Federico Ferrari (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL), Norman Backhaus and Nithin Bathla (University of Zurich), the artist Thijs Biersteker, the landscape architect Yves Brocker and the lighting designer Jörg Haller.