CinemARC: Tracing Light

Come to the ARC to watch Tracing Light and hear from researchers and those involved in making the film.

Join us for this special CinemARC presentation of Tracing Light. After the film, you’ll hear from researchers and the people responsible for making the film, who will discuss and illuminate the multiple mysteries of light.

Schedule

• 18:00 – Doors open and refreshments served

• 18:15 - Introduction

• 18:20 – Film plays

• 19:50 – Short break

• 20:00 – 20:30 – Panel discussion and audience Q&A

• 20:45 – Event finishes

About the film

Tracing Light | Thomas Riedelsheimer | 2024 | 99 mins

Tracing Light explores the most fascinating of natural phenomena – light. The film brings together leading physicists and artists from Scotland, England and Germany on a quest to understand and animate light. In Tracing Light, science and art join forces to illuminate the mysteries of light. The film brings together leading physicists and artists from Scotland, England and Germany who are on a quest to understand and animate light. As part of a guest residency at the University of Glasgow, artist duo Semiconductor – Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt – worked with single-photon avalanche diode cameras, which capture the motion of light as it travels through space. Tracing Light does not seek to explain, but to evoke. Through its visuals and encounters between artists and scientists, the film opens a contemplative space – one where wonder and sensuality quietly unfold.

About Thomas Ridelsheimer

Thomas Riedelsheimer, director of Tracing Light, is an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker and director of photography. He lives in Munich where he created and leads dok.art, a development programme for documentary films. He has many international awards for directing, editing and camerawork. Thomas’ film Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldsworthy working with Time (2001) earned him an international reputation. His medium is light. Mysterious and beguiling. In this film, in remote island settings and hi-tech laboratories, he brings together art and science to find the sweet spot between knowledge and beauty.

About the panel

Professor Sarah Cook

Sarah Cook is a curator, writer and researcher based in Scotland. She is Professor of Museum Studies in Information Studies at the University of Glasgow. Sarah has curated and co-curated over 50 international exhibitions of contemporary art, new media art and digital art for museums, galleries and festivals including Somerset House, BALTIC, Eyebeam, V2_, The Banff Centre, AV Festival, AND Festival, Transitio Festival, Edith Russ Haus, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and for online platforms including Xcult, Add-art, SAW Video, and Bielefelder Kunstverein. At LifeSpace she curated 16 exhibitions including newly commissioned work from artists Mat Fleming, Heather Dewey Hagborg and Philip Andrew Lewis, Andy Lomas, Daksha Patel, the Center for Postnatural History, Helen and Kate Storey, Mary Tsang, Thomson & Craighead and others.

Professor Daniele Faccio

Daniele Faccio joined the University of Glasgow in 2017 as Professor in Quantum Technologies where he leads the Extreme-Light group and is Director of Research for the School of Physics and Astronomy. He was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Physics in 2015, the Royal Society of Edinburgh Senior Public Engagement medal and the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award in 2017. He has worked on high intensity laser physics, optical analogues for black holes and gravity, optics in time-varying media and fundamentals of quantum mechanics. His research currently focuses on computational imaging and sensing, quantum microscopy and the development of technology for sensing/imaging the human heart and brain.

Sonja Henrici

Sonja Henrici is a writer / producer with over twenty years of experience in the Film and TV industry. She started working for film festivals (from 1999), joined Scottish Documentary Institute at its inception (2004) and founded its production arm, SDI Productions (2007) and became Co-director, putting Scottish documentary on the map. She established her own company, Sonja Henrici Creates, in 2021. She’s produced many award-winning feature documentaries, most recently BIRDS OF WAR (Sundance ‘26), TRACING LIGHT (DOKLeipzig ‘24) and MERKEL (Telluride ‘22). Her films have screened on all continents, in top festivals, cinema, TV, VOD, DVD, in over 60 countries.

Leslie Hills

Leslie Hills, Skyline Productions, is a creative producer working closely with writers and directors. Her film and television work has ranged across drama, politics, current affairs and the arts. She now concentrates on production, with her German partners, of award-winning cinema documentaries, financed and filmed across five continents and distributed internationally. She has given seminars from Toronto to St Petersburg and consulted on and edited scripts for international film commissions, festivals and training programmes. She is a member of BAFTA and the German Film Academy, and is a past chair of the Edinburgh International Film Festival

---

This event is part of the 2026 Spring Fling: About Time. For full programme details and bookings, please visit our collection.

This event is free, but ticketed.

You will be provided with one drink on arrival, while stocks last.

You are welcome to bring food with you, but please ensure you take any rubbish away with you.

If you have any access requirements, please contact ARCEngage@Glasgow.ac.uk.