artdecosnap.jpg

The architecture of Ghost Light Theaters pays homage to the golden age of Art Deco movie palaces. The series also exemplifies the ways in which a movie theater is like a living, inhabited camera—a dark space to record the play of light and shadows projected within. A "ghost light," a single bulb left illuminated when a theater is unoccupied and would otherwise be dark, is said to allow the resident ghosts to perform onstage when everyone else has left. This idea, too, bears a striking resemblance to the function of photography which, at its best, captures what we miss—the ghosts of a moment.