Jamal Hussain Strings Nature, Tech, and Spirit Together With Light
New Media artist unpacks upcoming Dougherty exhibit
By Caroline Drew, Fri., May 9, 2025
Jamal Hussain’s light-based work needs a studio that transforms. On a sunny afternoon ahead of his exhibit at Dougherty Arts Center’s annual Art-O-Rama, we sit discussing tech-heavy and nature-based art in his three-walled Round Rock studio, tranquil birdsong floating in on the wind. When we stand up to explore Hussain’s recent work, he lowers the garage door, plunging the space into quiet darkness.
“This concept of light became a connection point to me,” he explains. “Because spiritually we have light, and technology, of course, is based around light in the sense that it’s using light to share information. And our planet, of course, has the sun, which all flora and fauna need to survive.”
Inspired by the Light and Space movement of the Sixties, Hussain mobilizes technology to create art that is site-specific, often reflecting the shape of the exhibition space and the movements of natural lighting therein, and muddies the distinction between nature and technology. His new work seeks to bring attention to natural phenomena and ways of being through movements of light.
Poised at his computer, Hussain initiates a recent project. Light cast from a projector spills forth from the corner of two walls and the floor, taking a sandlike form. The projected sand begins to fill each two-dimensional surface in a seeping, triangular movement. As the sand expands, its flow is random and recurrent, as anyone who has watched sand on the beach knows it can be. The unwieldy patterns that emerge are a signature part of Hussain’s visual language. Halfway up the walls, the sand crystallizes into geometric shapes, like shards of glass, and is pulled by computer-programmed gravity back into the corner. In the absence of other light, the projection creates the sensation that the room is expanding and contracting. The feeling is awe-inspiring and meditative, provocative of the magic that technology, and nature, can hold – especially when its processes are obscured.
“I’m really experimenting with what it means for light to go away and then come back. I want to treat it as if it’s this living, conscious entity. It’s a breath of light,” Hussain says.
Tech-driven art, known by the ever-outdated name New Media Art, has been the subject of controversy since its conception due to its premise of using emerging technology, from 1800s animation devices to modern-day video software. Its use of computers and mechanics to create provokes questions about intellectual property and artistic authorship – especially now, as generative AI grows in popularity.
“[New Media Art uses] dynamic, interactive, or experiential elements. I choose these words intentionally because not all New Media works fall into these categories,” Hussain says. “It also opens the door to conversations around how we are coexisting with technology as it is drastically and dramatically changing our daily lives. For better or worse.”
Traditional gallery spaces aren’t always willing or able to display these interdisciplinary works, and their intentions are often reduced to surface-level aesthetics. In 2015, UNESCO named Austin the first and only City of Media Arts in the United States, drawing it into a global network of creative tech hubs where New Media artists may find more open-minded audiences.
Dougherty’s solarpunk theme for this year’s Art-O-Rama highlights Austin’s eye for innovation.
“It’s the oldest art institution in Austin. Yet it’s allowing space and supporting the newest forms of contemporary tech-based art,” Hussain says. “I feel the essence of DAC, through its ethos, history, and physical location, represents meaning. It sits at this cross point between the shores of [the] Colorado River, an artery of the city, a growing and illuminated Downtown skyline, and the massive Butler Metro park, which holds Alliance Children’s Garden. So there is this synergy between nature, technology – this is what I see when I look at a skyline, a motherboard – and people, particularly youth, that DAC plays a major role in supporting.”
The free 2025 Art-O-Rama takes place at Dougherty Arts Center on May 10 from 1-4pm.
