Shadowing Gifs

Shadowing is a set of modified streetlamps that capture and replay the actions of those who walk underneath. The work was the winner of the 2014 Playable City Award, and was first installed in Bristol UK. The project has since toured internationally, with eleven installations over the past ten years, including York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Austin and the London Design Museum.

These GIFs are from the second installation, in York UK. The early versions of the Shadowing software would save every interaction as a GIF and upload them to our server to remotely ensure the lamps were operational. Over 100,000 GIFs were generated before this feature was depreciated.

This release coincides with the 12th presentation of the work, which will be open for the month of October 2024 in Aurora Illinois, nicknamed the City of Lights for being one of the first cities in the US to install electric streelamps.