Slumber Light by Michael Jefferson is just one of many interesting interactive works on his website. While his work covers a broad spectrum of artistic practice which includes new media, sculpture, photography and video, Slumber Light (a new media work) is particularly interesting as a technology employing ideas concerning the internet of things and ambient technology.

The Slumber Light is:

a luminescent cube containing a photograph of a distant friend or family member that glows when that person is asleep.

An example scenario (with video) of how the Slumber Light works is as follows:

Sam, climbs into bed for his nighttime stories. Below his mattress is a proximity sensor that picks up on his bodies electrical field and turns on a SlumberLight on his night stand. The light pulses and glows, slowly. A signal is also sent out over the web to a chat server telling a remote SlumberLight on his Great Grandmothers night stand to also turn on and pulse. The Slumberlight contains a picture of Sam. As sam settles in to sleep, the the pulsing slows and goes into a low resting state while he sleeps. When he wakes and leaves his bed the SlumberLight turns off, waiting for the coming nighttime stories to turn on again.