Mørkets fortryllende æstetik

The topic of the article is the current aestheticization of nocturnal darkness as a domain of experience economy. Here, the article will explore a tension between the framing of nocturnal darkness as an experience product and as a source of enchantment, i.e. of epiphanic experiences of the ‘astronomical sublime’. This conflictual status is theoretically explained through the concept of enchantment and its strong, but ambivalent relationship to the aestheticization of late modern society. During the article, the discussion will be supplemented and illuminated by analyses of how Danish dark sky sites frame natural darkness as a source of knowledge and wonder.