Peripheral Interaction with Light

Light has a profound impact on the human body. Visually, light determines what aspects of our surroundings we can perceive and interpret. Non-visually, light contributes to regulating our physiology and psychology. Light is thus an unusual medium that can work both in and out of our conscious attention, and with new lighting technology this aspect is falling within our control. Computer controllable solid-state lighting has advanced such that they are now a commonplace technology in the world around us. While many of the characteristics of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting must fulfill the same requirements as lighting in the past, the ability to readily integrate LED technology into digital control systems presents exciting new opportunities that were not possible with other artificial light sources; for example, the potential to integrate the small form factor of an LED into the very fabric of a material or control them remotely over the Internet are aspects that set this technology apart from what has gone before. This unprecedented flexibility presents the opportunity for new functionality and novel interactive solutions for and with light. In this chapter, we present three categories of interactive lighting with many concrete examples: interacting with light at the center of our attention, interacting with light outside our attentional field, and interacting with light in the periphery of our attention. We conclude by considering the factors that make lighting a special medium for peripheral interaction and the role peripheral interaction can play in exposing the many new degrees of freedom ubiquitous digital lighting presents.