Exploring a Textile-based Shadow Lamp Display Incorporating Shape Memory Alloys

Abstract

Fig. 1. Shadow Lamp. (A) Shadow lamp setup used in the user study (B) Shadow 1 -iconic cat -in sharp state; (C) Shadow 1 in blurred state; (D) Shadow 2 -abstract-in sharp state; (E) Shadow 2 in blurred state; (F-G) Shadow 3 -abstract-in different elevation statesThis paper explores a novel concept of textile-based shadow displays that incorporates shape memory alloys (SMA) on fabrics to cast dynamic shadows as an ambient information display. To explore this, we implemented a lamp prototype, capable of presenting a set of dynamic shadows. These shadows exemplified iconic vs. abstract shadow figures, as well as demonstrating changes in shadow sharpness, size and/or position on the lamp's shade. We conducted a user study (n =8) to investigate the perception toward our concept. Our findings report that the concept does not only provide the potential for a variety of use cases, dynamic alterations of the shadows feel like a decorative addition to the living spaces, as well as creating relaxing channels of information display.