The Shadow

After a bit of a rant on my last post, I feel I should be more positive, and to get excited about what I have going on, instead of letting myself become bogged down with negatives. It is not productive and it doesn't make me feel any better.



I started this piece of writing, about shadows and my interest in them, about 4 weeks ago, and didn’t get round to posting it, or finishing it. So this is just me revisiting something I left alone which is often quite a useful exercise...

I am interested in shape shifting, an image that appears to mean one thing, continues to change and becomes another entirely.

I am interested in uncertainty.

Shadow: the effect of light on an object, shadow as a mythical or demonised other, shadow as a reflection of the self. A shadow indeterminate. A shadow that is not tangible, a magical shadow that can disappear entirely. A shadow like a murky spot on the brain at the edge of peripheral sight. A shape shifter.

Throughout the performance the female changes from her natural self, to shadow version of herself, at times to a large monstrous shadow and sometimes she is so faint an outline she is barely present. When communicating with the male character we never see her face.

The Shadow for me represents both the male and female characters and is a symbol of other but also of the self. Throughout art history shadows have been a representation of both these opposing readings, a realistic mirror of one’s self, but also as an other, a faceless stranger and often something demonic. The ambiguity of the shadow is interesting. For me a shadow is often an uncomfortable reminder of your present self and I think the Shadow in Silica represents both this and a less literal shadow (not created by light) but a real faceless other, that changes and alters throughout.

he shadow in the show can be read as a reflection of the man. It is the visual manifestation of his changing perceptions of the world; it is a symptom of his memory erosion, a loosing of the whole sense of someone and of himself. It at times symbolises a demonic and unbeatable presence in his mind at other times it appears helpless like a child. At times it is confusing as to whether this shadow is the woman, or his own reflection, I think she appears as part of him, he recognises her as part of his own self.

I am interested in this notion of facelessness as I am interested in the reality of eventually not recognising one’s own face and forgetting the faces of those we love that have died. I believe that there is no form of `recording' a realistic representation of a person, though film, through photographs or the recorded voice, as there is always an integral quality of that person missing. A smile in a photograph can make me in turn smile as I try to recall a departed loved ones laugh or voice, but we are left short. Even in a film of that person, you cannot feel the warmth of them, the smell of their surroundings, the true texture of their voice.

Voices are also central to the piece. The reason the two performers communicate (or appear to communicate) only through live and recorded voice (never live and live or recorded and recorded) is to illustrate a lack of communication but also the failure of technology to record and replicate experiences accurately. As the memory of a person fades it becomes physically more difficult to have a memorable conversation with them. And with memory we can recall conversations in our minds, but there is always this unattainablity of the wholeness of an experience that we are faced with.

I think I am trying to explore with the Shadow is that this ideal of a whole does not exist. We are not concrete; we are altered by everything we experience over time. This notion of whole is perhaps something the brain helps us to believe, a survival instinct so that we feel safe and comfortable in our skins: I truly know that person, I feel like myself when I am by the sea.

Once we undergo big changes in our lives, for example we loose someone close to us, we start to search for ways to hold onto our relationship to them, ways to keep them present and whole in order to still recognise and understand our own place in the world. I don't cope well with change, because it reminds me actually how fluid everything is, how nothing is fixed, even our feelings about ourselves. This can be both terrifying and invigorating.

In reality we are we many different versions of ourselves, I am not now who I was just one year ago and I will continue to shape shift, and adapt to time. Like the shadow the body is a site onto which many readings can be written, a body that can be weak, small and other times strong, one that will eventually disappear entirely.

The shadow does not represent a constrained image but perhaps a free more magical imitation of ourselves, one with endless interpretations. So going back to the piece, the shadow is not male or female, it is never exclusively one or the other, but an image of change and of uncertainty.