4Humanities interview with Alex May

4Humanities published an interview with Alex May on 25 November 2013, conducted by Eva Kekou as part of its International Correspondents series. The conversation introduced May’s practice through projects including Brighton: Remixed, Shadows of Light, and My Robot Companion, while also setting out how programming, projection, and custom software function as artistic material rather than just production tools.

What makes the interview useful is that it goes beyond biography and process notes. May speaks directly about why he developed Painting With Light, his frustration with spectacle-driven video mapping, and his interest in making digital systems physically and culturally legible. The discussion also opens onto questions that would remain central to the work: how digital art can be preserved, where an artwork resides when code is copied or compiled, and how technology changes the way reality is perceived.

Published at a moment when May was moving between local work in Brighton and international projects such as the Caracas workshop, the interview gives a clear early account of the wider practice. It shows a body of work already concerned with memory, code, and the unstable boundary between physical space and digital image, while making those ideas accessible to a broader humanities audience.