Exhibiting at the London Design Festival last month, Shadow Memories is a bench created by designer Joshua Barnes (the brains behind the ingenious Communication Quilt), allows visitors to leave a message for a future sitter - and only for those sitting on the same spot precisely a year later. Chiefly dependent on sundials, new technology and time, this project is a remarkable mixture of elements.

The bench is used as a sundial, with the arm of the bench functioning as its hour hand. The bench structure will cast a unique shadow that occurs once a year, on that exact date and time. Users can leave a video message, and, using an image-recognition app on their smartphones, connect it to the day and hour's shadow. Every hour of the day, new videos will reveal themselves from previous years' users.

Instilling a database of peoples' memories in a park bench, Shadow Memories may be regarded as an antidote to today's fast-paced technology by slowing things down, and forcing us to wait.