Shadows of Light at HCI 2016
· exhibition
Alex May presented Shadows of Light in the HCI 2016 gallery at Bournemouth University, with the installation framed by discussion around slow interaction and cross-disciplinary HCI practice.
Shadows of Light was shown in the gallery at HCI 2016 at Bournemouth University, where it was presented in the context of the conference’s wider interest in how interaction can be understood across disciplines. The work was selected for its exploration of slow interaction, asking visitors to stay with the installation long enough for image, silhouette, and colour to accumulate over time rather than resolve immediately.
That setting made the piece especially apt. Within a human-computer interaction conference, Shadows of Light demonstrated how responsiveness does not have to mean speed, efficiency, or instant feedback. Instead, the work focused attention on duration, presence, and the changing visual trace left by the viewer, offering an artistic counterpoint to more instrumental models of interaction.
The conference also included a panel on Performing Interaction: Space, Place and Time, where May spoke about the installation and the wider practice around it. Together, the exhibition and discussion showed how the work could function both as a public artwork and as a contribution to HCI discourse, using aesthetic experience to test what interaction feels like when it unfolds slowly.