Resonant, dwelling, unfading

from self and other then no sound then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither unspeakable home

- neither, by Samuel Beckett (1976)

Shadow emerges from the interplay of light and corporeality, extending through physical space without its own materiality. Shadows are the afterimage of that which illuminates our world, luminosity tethered to surface, shape and form. Shadow stretches, multiplies, distorts. We seek shadow as a refuge from an oppressive midday sun, and we hide from the shadows of our psyche, those parts of our being that we attempt to remain hidden, both from our conscious selves and from those in our lives. To dance with this afterimage is to dance with that which we habitually turn away from. What might it mean to tap into the creative force of our shadows?

In this way, this work explores the use of full-body shadows as a means of non-traditional sound-based instrumentation. We explore the affordances of shadow-based interaction for performance and as a tool for embodied, immersive dialogue with self and environment. Such affordances include: multi-location, in which one’s shadows may be cast on surfaces at distances; morphology based on source angle, position, reflection, as well target surface typology; and an immediacy of visible feedback.

Full paper here.

In collaboration with: Adrian Montufar, Annais Paetsch.

Advised by Professor Kimiko Ryokai of UC Berkeley School of Information