Matt Gatton specializes in the use of physical light in ritual spaces during prehistory and classical antiquity, which is a rather niche academic pursuit, but it opens up an amazing window into the past. He has contributed to Acts of Seeing: Artists, Scientist, and the History of the Visual (London: Zidane Press, 2009) and the Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Light (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022). Gatton's groundbreaking work on light and image in the Paleolithic was published in the Journal of Applied Mathematics (APLIMAT). The Shadows of Socrates is Gatton's first trade-press book.
Gatton has presented his work at the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford (UK), the University of Cologne (Germany), Pastor Foundation in Madrid (Spain), The University of Lisbon (Portugal), The University of Calabria (Italy), The Greek Embassy in Washington DC, the US House of Representatives, and elsewhere. A large international arts festival in Belgium was themed on Gatton's writings, which were also presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson on National Geographic's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.