Shadow Research

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Real Life Is Rubbish (2002) by Tim Noble and Sue Webster examines how meaning and identity are produced by appearance. The work presents two layers. One is a pile of everyday refuse, dense, chaotic, and materially explicit. The other is a sharply defined shadow that appears only under controlled light. The shadow functions as a mediated image;  it simplifies disorder into a coherent form.

Kumi Yamashita

Yamashita uses shadow in a very calm and controlled way. Her works are usually made from simple materials and a single light source, and nothing looks dramatic at first glance. The objects themselves are often abstract and quiet, but their shadows become clear and recognisable images, such as faces or figures. Unlike artists who use shadow to question reality or create irony, Yamashita treats the shadow as something that reveals a hidden order. It feels as if the image was always there, waiting for the right light to appear.

Rashad Alakbarov

“After the feast”: a shadow installation by Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov exhibited at the Embassy of France in Baku in 2009.

This artist arranges the specific shapes formed by the remnants left on tables after people have feasted and revelled at parties. Mirrors are placed beneath these food scraps, and when light is directed from above at a particular angle, the artist’s envisioned shapes are reflected through the negative space and the refraction of the eye shadow.

Their work has provided a conceptual starting point for my own thinking. It suggests that an abstract object does not need to be meaningful in itself, but can become meaningful through the conditions under which it is perceived. By manipulating light and perspective, form can shift from opacity to legibility.

Building on this idea, I am interested in a puzzle where the player controls the angle of light or selects between ambiguous objects to shape clear images to solve problems. Meaning emerges only through projection. The act of solving the puzzle becomes an act of interpretation rather than construction.