The lighting design for Oxygen served two main functions: to create separate abstracted worlds in which both the 1777 and 2001 characters could live and tell their stories, and to take the audience to each time period and location shift on which the script and production depended. The lighting established the world of the play, giving texture to the air in which the actors told the story. The world of the play included a largely empty space to which lighting added texture, movement and shape, working together with the moving scenic environment and costume silhouettes of both time periods.