This dissertation redefines Los Angeles “light and space” art, tracing the multiple strains of abstract light art that developed in California during the postwar technology boom. These artists used new technical materials and industrial processes to expand modernist definitions of medium and create perceptual experiences based on their shared understanding of light as artistic material. The diversity and experimental nature of early Light and Space practice has been suppressed within the discourse of “minimal abstraction,” a term I use to signal the expansion of my analysis beyond the boundaries of work that is traditionally associated with “minimalism” as a movement. My project focuses on three women: Mary Corse, Helen Pashgian and Maria Nordman, each of whom represents a different trajectory of postwar light-based practice in California. While all of these artists express ambivalence about attempts to align their practice with the Light and Space movement, their work provides fundamental insight into the development of light art and minimal abstract practice in California during this era. In chapter one, I map the evolution of Mary Corse’s experimental “light painting” between 1964 and 1971, in which the artist experimented with new technology—including fluorescent bulbs and the reflective glass microspheres used in freeway lane dividers—to expand the perceptual boundaries of monochrome painting by manifesting an experience of pure white light. In chapter two, I plot the development of Helen Pashgian’s plastic resin sculpture from her early pieces cast in handmade molds to her disc sculptures that mobilized the expertise of the faculty and aeronautical engineering technology available to her during an artist residency at the California Institute of Technology between 1969 and 1971. In chapter three, I chart the origins of Maria Nordman’s ephemeral post-studio practice using natural light from her early works that modified the architecture of her Los Angeles studio, to installations in which she excised sections of the walls or ceilings of commercial spaces and galleries, and finally to her project at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley for the 1979 Space as Support series, in which she turned the museum building into a container for the light of the summer solstice. The reception history I construct outlines how gender bias suppressed the contributions of women within the critical and historical discourse surrounding light-based work and minimal abstraction, while also exploring how women mobilized Light and Space’s interest in embodied perceptual experience as part of my wider analysis of the tactics deployed by women making abstract work before the discursive spaces of feminism and institutional critique were fully formed.

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-51). / An environmental light sculpture with screen-like architectural units which interact with moving light and shadow to create a complex spatial environment. The environment involves movement and change and has many possibilities and configurations rather than one fixed view. It evolved from an installation to a performance in which the audience was invited to enter and move through the space. The written thesis has two sections: 1) An art historical section concerning spatial environments in painting, sculpture, and architecture, stressing those dealing with light and illusion. There is also a brief history of recent environmental uses of light. 2) A description and photographic documentation of the thesis project which records its evolution, installation, and performance, with conclusions regarding possible future directions. / by Beth Galston. / M.S.V.S.

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This study sets out to establish an hegemony of light and examine its relationship to the lens in photography. Through a series of sequenced photographs presented as an exhibition 'The Light Ages' in May 2017. The photographs were 841mm x 1189 mm Giclee prints mounted on aluminum which explore the way in which difference sources of light contribute to the identity of different spaces by fracturing and separating the light and duration of the image. The thesis explores how light permeates the English language and is inscribed in terms used to define photography. As a source of energy, light provides the very essence of visibility and defines the perception of objectivity and its limits. The geometric relationship between the light axes and the lens axis is what forms the basis of my development of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. Since all photographs rely on some kind of light it was important to identify one that was developed specifically for photographic use and controlled almost exclusively by the agents of photographic representation. It also appears to mark the ontology of the image, however, as this study examines it is only one of the temporal registers. The practice seeks to tear apart these temporal registers to show the dualism and hegemony of light, how it attempts to pin down one interpretation at the expense of another. One of the greatest challenges for researchers, is to consider new photographic discourses that attempt to understand how advances in technology affect the relationship between the aesthetic and the signified. Through practice, the study tests and explores the relationship between flash light and the lens axis. It questions whether our perception of the centrality of photographic representation is the defining characteristic of photography as a stable form of representation in contemporary culture.

The combination of an ion trap with a high finesse optical cavity is an ideal system for the investigation of strong coupling cavity quantum electrodynamics, and allows the observation of a number of interesting quantum phenomena. To achieve the small mode volumes required without impairing the ion trapping small traps with a short ion electrode distance are needed. Two microscopic linear rf ion traps have been developed and built to accommodate experimental cavities of lengths of several 100 microns. The first trap design, the 'sandwich' trap, was successfully used to trap 40Ca+ - ions for several hours. It was characterised extensively including a measurement of the heating rates of the ions in the trap. Spectroscopy measurements of the cooling transition, as well as the two repumping transitions were carried out. The second trap design, the 'alumina' trap, also successfully trapped 40Ca+ - ions, and a full characterisation of this trap was made. The experimental cavity was installed at a preliminary cavity length distance of 3.7 mm. The cavity characteristics were examined. Finally the trapped ions were overlapped with the cavity mode by adjusting the trap minimum position along the trap axis via dc voltages and the vertical position of the cavity. To progress further a locking scheme for the cavity length as well as a single - photon detection setup are necessary. To achieve strong coupling a reduction of the cavity length will have to be made.

In this dissertation, I present optical emission and light scattering studies on ultraclean two-dimensional electron systems. These studies focus on emerg- ing phases in the second Landau level. I report for the excitation spectrum for fractional quantum Hall states at filling factors ν = 2+1/3, ν = 2+3/8, and ν = 2+2/5 through resonant inelastic light scattering. Resonant Rayleigh scattering is used to demonstrate that these fractional quantum Hall states are anisotropic. This work provides new insights into the nature of quasiparticle interactions of these states. It also sets the stage for the subsequent discussions about competing and coexistent phases. I present studies of emergent phases in the filling factor range 2 ≤ ν ≤ 3 using weak optical emission from the second Landau level and resonant inelas- tic light scattering by spin wave excitations. A multiplet of optical emission peaks observed that exhibit striking filling factor dependence amnifest phase competition in the second Landau level. A correlation of emission peaks in the multiplet with anomalies observed in the spin wave spectrum uncover major impact of the spin degree of freedom on the emergent phases in the second Landau level. These experiments demonstrate the promise of optical emission from excited Landau levels as a probe of emergent phases. Results from optical emission and resonant inelastic light scattering stud- ies of the second Landau level conducted at higher temperatures (T ≈ 1 K) are also presented. Evidence that many phases observed at these higher temperatures are shown to be the same as those at lower (T ≈ 40 mK) temperatures. Striking and anomalous temperature-dependence of optical emission experiments is used to gain further insight into the nature of these competing phases.

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