Exploring the Potential of Depictions with Sun Reflections

In this paper we explore alternate projection and imaging mechanisms that don’t rely on luminous sources, such as screens or LEDs. We investigate how sunlight can be used along a continuum ranging from non-informational aesthet-ic lighting to simple controlled reflections of sunlight that provide enough information to depict legible content. Re-thinking the pixel as a reflection exposed challenges in me-chanics, material and ease of control. We found that slow, precise movements work best. The threshold between pixel and non-pixel provides great potential to add additional aes-thetics to a depiction based on sunlight, by transitioning be-tween atmospheric ambient lighting and information repre-sentation. Our exploration of depictions without traditional information-rich content provides an alternative to think about ambient, calm and public displays. Author Keywords Light; pixel; reflection; media architecture; public interfac