Kinetica Art Fair Artist Interview: Alex May

Aesthetica published Kinetica Art Fair Artist Interview: Alex May on 13 October 2014, shortly before that year’s fair at the Old Truman Brewery in London. The interview introduced May’s work to Aesthetica’s wider art audience through the language of sculpture, sound, digital footage, and interaction, while placing his presentation at Kinetica Art Fair within a broader developing practice.

What makes the conversation useful is that it gives May space to describe the longer arc behind the work. He speaks about teaching himself programming as a child, moving through VJ culture, and gradually shifting from club performance towards more structured installations and public contexts. In that framing, Painting With Light is not treated as a technical novelty, but as part of a sustained attempt to build a visual language in which projected image, physical structure, and real-time system behaviour remain inseparable.

The interview also captures an important moment in the practice’s growth. May describes Kinetica as a recurring site of direct engagement with large audiences, and outlines a period of rapid development supported by an Arts Council England grant, with work moving between Woking, Amsterdam, London, Dubai, and Brighton. That makes the piece a useful snapshot of how the work was being articulated publicly as it expanded from individual installations into a wider video-mapping sculpture practice.