Three figures sit silently on a bench. They focus their attention on the smartphones they clasp in their hands. The sculpted devices illuminate the figures’ faces in ghostly white light. British artists Gali May Lucas and Karoline Hinz created this work, titled Absorbed by Light, to address a haunting 21st-century concern: the power that smartphones have over us and how they can cause us to disengage from our surroundings. The artists invite viewers to sit on the bench and experience the artwork alongside the preoccupied figures.

Lucas and Hinz created this outdoor sculpture for the Amsterdam Light Festival. Every winter, contributors to the festival incorporate light into public artworks along the canals in the city’s center. The artists hope their work encourages us to evaluate technology’s role in our daily lives.