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tags:shadow Shadows
Continued in Survey Of Shadows Continued
Note
I got into shadows while writing this. I partially wanted to see what would happen if I kept shadows at the top of my mind. Shadows always seem a background aspect, but are also ever present.
This study ended up taking me more broadly, to the study of holes and islands. Which I unfortunately did not take notes on but will revisit.
My niece Eva has started noticing shadows about two weeks ago, which like all things with Eva is great and crushingly beautiful. It’s also exaggerated, she’ll see her shadow like a kitten Mia playing with her new tail and do her bobble head swivel and be fixated on it. But her awareness of it also highlighted our own unawareness of shadows, or how we are aware of them but they are accepted and hidden in plain sight. Part of my motivation here is to make myself keenly aware of shadows, top of mind awareness.
I wanted to cover basically all concepts of shadow I could think of and maybe you’ll have some parts to add, which I would greatly accept. Kind of in the course of this I wandered into art and other concepts, but I do want more examples and I also want to in the future push into written word and more precisely different representations of shadows in folklore or movies (reminded of The Whale from last year, where shadows of people entering the scene, a shut in’s home, are first seen in the windows outside, and The Humans, coincidentally also a play, in which shadows engulf the screen - still not understanding the 6.2 IMDb score here). Movies would definitely be in the scope of this but I didn’t have time because of how large a scope it is but want to add it later. Shadows in noir could be its own essay as well.
I do want to highlight one experimental “slow” filmmaker, Scott Barley and his short “The Green Ray” (later included in the feature film “Sleep Has Her House”. I almost want to say watch this in the dark full screen prior to reading this. View here.
In his essay “Darkling Vigil” by Maximilian Le Cain, he states about Barley’s film, “It becomes hard to know if the shadows we jump at are on screen or products of our minds.”
I’ve always loved shadows and I thought I’d combine some random thoughts over the years and as I was writing this, into some “pseudo-comprehensive” survey of shadows. Even working on this casually over the course of a week or so I’ve been more conscious of shadows though. This also happened to me when I was interested in digital watercolor, but in a way opposite. When you are working with watercolor I heard you have to be aware of the most light point in your image and work towards that (since watercolor is additive, and you can only return to a lighter value with some difficulty and also excessive blending can irrevocably degrade and “mud-ify”the image.) In an interesting reversal, for watercolor, the lightest portions of the form might not even have paint applied and just be untouched paper.
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As a kid (and as an adult) around the 4th of July I’ve taken pleasure in an antimimetic viewing of fireworks, instead of focusing on the airborne explosions focusing on the ground and the brief showing of strange and perplexing shadows. The ghostly smoke of previous bursts being briefly but brilliantly illuminated.
I believe shadows are negatively viewed, often the source of fright or “negative” language. The shadow is the creeping unknown monster. The shadow is “less than” in the cases - “he’s the shadow of his former self” or “she lives in the shadow of her sister” or “we exist in the shadow of that event”. Nobody wants to dwell in the shadow of their past, though the shadow is always present.
I’m also interested in these ideas of shadows as analogies or mapping problems or phenomena with shadows onto other problems. I’ll go over this, like “The shadow form of a mirror” or the “shadow of a song” “shadow of a word” “the map of a shadow or shadow of a map” - what could these mean? etc.
Non-obvious shadows are also something that I want to seek out.
I’m also avoiding the obvious Jung’s Shadow right now..
What is your true shadow? The purest form of your human shadow? Does it exist, or is it constantly in a changing state?
There’s little organization to this survey, I’m just thinking of things and putting them here!
Shadow Jewelry by Maiko Takeda
Shadow IT is a form of IT that exists outside of the domain of the IT proper. Shadow IT might be someone with admin access on their computer installing a program that isn’t allowed, or a hidden wifi router used by members of an office. It represents a risk to the institution’s authority and control but it also represents a need that is attempting to be satisfied. So while it exists in the cracks of the system, it can directly map to a need or inadequacy in the overarching IT. In this way it is a message.
Shadow Libraries - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_library
Shadow libraries are online databases of readily available content that is normally obscured or otherwise not readily accessible. Such content may be inaccessible for a number of reasons, including the use of paywalls, copyright controls, or other barriers to accessibility placed upon the content by its original owners.[1][2] Shadow libraries usually consist of textual information as in electronic books, but may also include other digital media, including software, music, or films.
A good meta-shadow library exists here on monoskop
Shadow Copies of files underlie Windows functionality, waiting in a snapshotted backup for restoration.
A Shadow System is a broader concept of this and embodies a conflict between centralized power or official modes of data conduct and individuals. This can be illustrated in the use of ad hoc, undocumented spreadsheets versus a database of “living” data. The joke is always that excel is the ultimate tool, and these unofficial documents actually drive much of the function. It’s easy to see how this shadow body could overwhelm the System proper. Another consequence of this distribution is several versions of truth arising.
Shadowbanning is another tech concept. An individual who is shadowbanned, doesn’t receive any feedback that they are banned - but it divorces them from the community. To them their comments are posted but no feedback mechanisms in the system will show them that others cannot view their posts. Living virtually in solipsistic existence they are like shadow without a body. The funny thing is that the digital world can be permeable, depending on the coded implementation of shadow banning. For example, you’ll sometimes view an article and see for example “2 comments” being listed. On expanding the thread, zero comments will be seen. What the comment system is doing is reading the shadowbanned comments. To take this a step further in what I mean it being a “permeable veil”, you’ll sometimes see users noticing this and announcing to “the shadow” commenter “if you’re posting here right now, I’m just letting you know you’ve been shadowbanned.” A forced one way communication channel.
In games shadows can be used as a guide, as a means of subtly guiding the player without the use of other more overt symbols (flashing arrows, highlight path - all existing outside of the immersive space). And it is remarkably effective at this, and we as gamers are so conditioned to this avoidance of “shadow walking” that they’ll move towards light reflexively. Outlined in the game design toolkit here.
Shadows can be a form of a puzzle. Recently I was playing a game and the solution to progress was unclear. What was needed was an understanding that the cast shadows, previously just a piece of scenery that was passed, required adjustment to “make sense”.
I was so smitten by this concept of a board game that involved shadows that I purchased Waldshattenspiel (Shadow’s in the forest? A rare case where I know the German name before the English) from Germany during our board game daze of the 2010s.
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The game is played with shadows. A small candle is moved across the board and players hide in the cast shadows. The game is not elaborate and more of a children’s game but the ambiance and intimacy of the tea candle and concept was worth the ebay.de shipping.
In one of my favorite tabletop settings, the Swedish RPG company Fria Ligan’s Symbaroum is centered around a great and mysterious forest called Davokar with PCs generally being types of bandits and treasure hunters seeking to venture deeper and deeper into the forest. Davokar is divided into The Open, The Wild and The Dark with the Open being the liminal and outermost regions and the Dark being that portion enshrouded in shadows where increasingly eldritch beasts lie along with older ruined civilizations and magics consumed by the forest’s ancient growths.
Many have described Dark Davokar as infested with contagions and parasites; diseases which affect the flesh and mind of the exposed in different ways but always with horrible consequences – the victims grow insane, warped, lame, rabid or undead; or all of those combined. Other stories tell of distortions or deep tears in the fabric of nature, of monsters that defy all reason and of ancient curses so vibrant that they will boil the flesh from the bones of everyone that comes near.
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Drop Shadow and Box Shadows in photoshop and CSS can achieve a great deal of variety with a simple syntax. Box Shadows existed for many years but required adding webkit- and other vendor specific prefixes for compatibility. One recently popular design trend exploits exaggerated harsh shadows, and that is the Neubrutalistic aesthetic. Thick shadow lines contrast with solid vibrant colors.
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Fonts and designs exploit shadow, with the ability to exclude the body’s outline entirely, presenting only shadow space and maintaining legibility.
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We also see browsers utilizing the Shadow DOM. This attempts to confer programmatic and stylistic isolation. This is different from a Virtual DOM, though it is a question which of the two adheres more closely to our concept of a shadow. In implementing these objects we also see the metaphor of attaching a shadow to an object.
const shadow = this.attachShadow({ });
It’s also common for a shadow form of the playing character to be a boss, often one of the most difficult types because they match the player’s move sets. Here is dark link, an exact replica but translucent (also malicious, which is its own common play on shadow - the evil self).
Funnily, this could also be done with a… Shader applied to the shadow twin. Shaders are themselves computer programs (quite often esoterically written and often indecipherable) that calculate appropriate levels of light and shade and were first developed by Pixar but now a common tool in computational art. Shadertoy website has many examples. This is one of my favorite shaders, clocking in at only 120 LoC.
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In strategic games fog of war presents the player with a way of representing unknown space, it is formless uncertainty. The world begins in shadow and ends in light. Shadows in this manner are also constantly being redefined, but depending on the implementation (and a marked difference to real shadows) cannot reclaim their territory. Though it is true that some designs will have stages of shadow, the lit realm will be an area under active observation, the solid black will be territory not yet seen, and a translucent shadow with action frozen under it will be an area that is not currently observed but has been seen.
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Objects in the game world, particularly with stealth games will attempt to relay information about how the character is interacting with shadow. One example of this is in the thief series where the player has a gem. The degree the gem is lit represents how much in the shadows you are, and is integral to the gameplay.
A permanent part of the Heads Up Display at the bottom-center of the screen, the ‘Light Gem’ or ‘Visibility Gem’ indicates to the player how visible Garrett is, by brightening or darkening according to the light level of Garrett’s position, and tells the player how well guards or other NPCs in the vicinity may be able to see Garrett, if they are facing him or looking in his direction.
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Speaking of thieves obviously, rogues are the shadow archetype (shadow dance), but shadows also play into magic users. { Insert 5 pages of world of warcraft musing here }. Using the WoW API did a query for Shadow* spells in the WoW spell atlas returns thousands of results, “Cloak of Shadows”, “Door of Shadows” “Coalescing Shadows” “Lingering Shadow” “Glyph of the Shadow Succubus” “Encroaching Shadows” “Harness Shadow” “Embrace Shadow” “Replicating Shadows” “Darkest Shadow” “Icy Shadows” “Shadowbolt” “Shadowdance” on and on.
(Programming project: Perform subtraction of Shadow and analysis after that. Compared to other common words in the spell corpus)
I’ve placed a subset of shadow spells here for perusal.
Shadow Pokémon are a subtype of pokemon. “Shadow Pokémon are created through an undisclosed process that removes the Pokémon’s emotions, turning it into a soulless fighting machine. Ein, creator of the process and Cipher’s head scientist at the time of Colosseum, refers to this process as “shutting the door to their hearts”.
Limbo prominently used shadows as part of its aesthetic.
In college I did a research paper on the appropriately labeled “Shadow of The Colossus” game and the technologies and pipelines used in creating the delicate light in that game. Shadows in this game are rendered based on a more heavily pixelated version of the 3D model of the player as a form of optimization (so the shadow here would be blockier than the protags model). This highlights a point that will come up further on how we represent shadows in art. Often, if not always, the shadow we see is a representation of a shadow. It is a lie of a shadow and not a shadow in reality. (A shadow of a shadow?)
I’m cracking up here because my professor at that time was Klaus Mueller who hailed from the Black Forest of Germany (this might be a hazy/lazy recollection?). After presenting my Shadow of the Colossus report, without joking he said to me “Did you work on this game?” as if I who was struggling to get my programs to work correctly could have any understanding of shadow rendering besides the above. Grimly enough to look up just now, Fumito Ueda at the time of creation of SotC was my present age.
In both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico shadows play a major role. Shadow enemies in this game can create shadow portals which they pull Yorda, a secondary escorted character, into.
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** In games shadows are ignored by enemies/NPCs. They do not exist, despite often being clear indicators.
One thing I thought of is that shadows are often ignored by AI in games. Your character may be idling behind a block, breathing deeply and the cast shadow falls on the floor in plain sight of the pathfinding. It will be ignored completely despite carrying the profile of the slaying hero.
Stylistic use of shadows obscuring features can be used for dramatic effect, especially in sequential art or still character images.
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This dramatic effect is capable of visually reflecting emotions, as if the character can warp shadows to suit mood (though a type of brooding, head tilted down stance might also obscure the eyes, the same effect of a strong overhead light)
However, as this image demonstrates it is deliberate. Both sides have equal amount of shadows (half of the face) but the direction of the self shadow has varying levels of emotion. It ignores the light source and is its own controlled source.
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Manga also uses shadow as a unique cultural form of distress but by shadows marked as vertical lines.
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On shadows on shadowsshadows
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Some shadow terms,
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Mainly important here is the fact that each shadow has two, it is split. The cast shadow and the shadow that is attached to the body. A cast shadow doesn’t have to be anchored to the body.
This trait can confound ownership. Which hand owns the shadow?
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Generally we will apply a shadow to the nearest possible host (proximity), especially in abstract scenes such as geometries and designs.
Shadows themselves have three parts, the umbra (latin for shadow, or the darkest part), the penumbra (the portion of an occluded body) and the antumbra (where the shadowed body is entirely in the light source).
Once again hailing to the college days of yesteryear I had once tried to create an early shadowy computer science group called obumbratus which had some moody overtones.
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“Occultation of Aldebaran” was a sentence that got stuck in my head in the past out of the blue. The combination of words was so distinct I’d find myself repeating it in my head at random times, perhaps you have similar phrases? Aldebaran is light years away and was recently blocked by the moon. Quite eerily I just found out Aldebaran is Arabic for “The Follower” - a serendipitous connection that turned my stomach by being so close a description of the shadow. I am now fond of it and imagining an Aldebaranian writing a little message about shadows and Sol in their head.
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In the 2017 eclipse (also shadow focused) I recall going outside during work for a walk around lunch. The shadow of the leaves cast small crescents from the eclipse and odd phenomenon. I also saw this cat in a field playing with the shadows.
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Also, hidden in plain sight - Foreshadow - : to give a hint or suggestion of beforehand.
“indicate beforehand ,” 1570s, figurative, from fore- + shadow (v.); the notion seems to be a shadow thrown before an advancing material object as an image of something suggestive of what is to come. Related: Foreshadowed; foreshadowing. As a noun from 1831.
Some other words.
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borrowed from Latin adumbrātus, past participle of adumbrāre “to shade, represent by means of light and shade, sketch, outline,” from ad- AD- + -umbrāre, verbal derivative of umbra “shadow” — more at UMBRAGE
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Umbrage is a word born in the shadows. Its ultimate source (and that of umbrella) is Latin umbra, meaning “shade, shadow,” and when it was first used in the 15th century it referred to exactly that.
Umbrella, that object which casts shadow.
I’m also finding this path might lead to the idiom “throw shade”?
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Also “Chasing Shadows”
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Dogs can obsessive compulsively chase shadows.
My 1 1/2-year-old neutered male English Shepherd developed a fascination with light and shadows about nine months ago. He chases any reflections he sees, and on cloudy days, he does the chasing behavior in places where shadows usually appear. He will stand outside under a tree and watch shadows of leaves blowing for 20 minutes at a time. He is an inside/outside dog and gets at least an hour walk each day. The behavior is not destructive, but I worry about the total attention he gives to it, and I don’t want it to get worse. Why does my dog chase shadows, and what should I do?
This video shows a purported behavioral treatment to fix it. A treat is proffered for shadow defixation along with voicing “yes.” From an obsessive background, I find this mania kind of terrifying. Here a border collie is obsessed with the shadow of a dishwasher.
Yeah I think from my limited knowledge of collies you need to stop her looking at shadows as much as possible - many get so obsessed they can chase birds shadows and fall off cliffs etc - it’s very dangerous.
In our discussion, the idea of a crane and school of fish was brought up. If anything it works interestingly allegorically. The fish might have only the shadowy awareness of the predatory crane as it hover over them in the littoral zone. They might evolutionarily associate shadows with death and danger. No fish would know of the crane as a full flying beast. But they would know the shadow of a beak, or stilt legs.
Shadows playfully inhabit the imaginary, the realm of possibility that is also tied to impossibility. This is exemplified in this lego advertisement “the shadow knows”
Amodal completion with shadows shapes with their ability to effortlessly conceal and merge.This type of amodal completion with respect to being a fertile ground for the imaginary (and therefore perhaps a reason why shadows can be associated with generally perceived as negative things, such as horror and the eerie) can be seen here.
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What I am highlighting is the shadowy form in (a) above. We might imagine the simple solution, that the geometric circle or square is completed. But the imaginative and amorphous shadow form interpretation could hide a 2D face that is grimacing, or a novel shape or anything.
This morphing shadow world around us is constantly recomputed. A shadow is also lost immediately, or reshaped. There’s no catalog of shadows or a way to recompute where the body lies. It is nonetheless an object in direct connection to the host. Imagining here a book that excludes the shadow of classified birds to be incomplete. Or the shape of a novel of all configurations of bird flight of a single bird, but the possible shadows of the bird body.
The information is lost.
Shadows are often part of illusions, like the viral kinetic spinning dancer illusion. We spoke of shadows having many forms and being “multi-stable”.
A multi-stable shadow, “These alternations are spontaneous and may randomly occur without any change in the stimulus or intention by the observer. However some observers may have difficulty perceiving a change in motion at all.”
Perhaps this is due to shadows being so malleable and mergeable? It is fascinating that either consciously or (often in my case) unconsciously the shadow can shift as if existing in two forms at once.
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This makes me also think of the rorschach test and interpretations of these “shadow patterns”, similar to clouds due to an observable and interpretable nature.
Shadows are very low on the hierarchy of information, which is why being conscious of them can be a power in itself. They can be overruled by clues in the environment - the jagged shadow is just a JMK freeskate in the sunset. This gives them powerful imaginative power from this standing.
A shadow must be flat? Lacking volume? Is this true? This is accurate to our experience. The cast shadow lies upon a flat surface but the possible shadow could be an extrusion from the occluding object to the surface it is cast on. It exists in a path of darkness between the two planes. It is almost eerie to look at your hand casting a shadow in this way, like the shadow clings and pulls from you. You cannot escape it either.
I suppose this can also be seen when a shadow is cast through a gassy medium, clouds. You see what I mean? The shadow is reaching, it has volume that is made visible only by the clouds yet we just see the projection. An observer in the path would be in the body of the shadow.
Questions I have:
Q: Is there “reinforcement” to a shadow past a point? Peak shadow.
Q: What is the maximal distance between an individual and their shadow?
Q: Which object in the universe has been the furthest from its shadow?
I remember mentioning to you be briefly interested in caves and caves in relation to time (you mentioned Dark, which I still need to watch.) While looking into this something that stuck with me are the types of holes in topology. You can have holes that are surface level, a depression, and holes that are within an object (a cavity), and holes that pass through an object. I could not find a good picture of this besides this engineering diagram for drills.
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It’s difficult to imagine a type of shadow that exists independent of light, not just the absence of light - something that fills a space, a void.
Can you arrange a scene of objects where two objects have the same shadow, while not existing in the same space (overlapping in 3D space)? Like those shadow artists we’ve mentioned in the past.
What would a quine of shadows look like? A programmed shadow.
Thomas Halloway’s depiction of a machine for drawing silhouettes, adapted by Lavater for his use in Physiognomy (accessing through study of features of the face) studies. He states, “What can be less the image of a living man than shade? Yet how full of speech! little gold but the purest.”**
He maintained the practice of deciphering like this as an act of love stating “I am of the opinion that a man seen in silhouette from all angles [..] would allow fundamentally new discoveries to be made on the insignificant nature of the human body.”
The shadow of the nose was particular importance to him, its protuberance “the buttress of the brain.” “What the person conceals, the shadow reveals” and this activity turned out to be a popular party game “all those who took part did so with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. Apprehension because the were worried some disorder of the soul; anticipation because they hoped their inestimable hidden qualities would be revealed to all.”
Last night I had a dream about shadows. I was part of a film production in a dark room. There was filming going on and the cinematographer was critiquing the actor for his ability to conduct his shadow and be aware of it. Same with the cinematographer who had to be aware of this large old camera he was positioning in such a way that its shadow fell outside of the frame, as the camera didn’t exist in the film so nor did the shadow so seeing the shadow would be a critical error.
Shadows can be related to sound as well, as in Acoustic Shadows, where sound fails to propagate for a number of reasons like absorption, wind or other obstructions. When a radiologist performs an ultrasonography they may encounter these artifacts where sound is not reflected.
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Acoustical shadows have also have influenced battles as described in Outdoor Sound Propagation in the U.S. Civil War. Students of military history know that acoustic refraction and unusual audibility have often played significant roles in the outcome of battles.
Unusual acoustics due to atmospheric conditions or to terrain are sometimes given the catch-all name “acoustic shadows.” The first recorded incidence of the phenomenon occurred during the Four-Day Battle in 1666. The naval battle was fought between the coasts of England and Holland, and sounds of the battle were heard clearly at many points throughout England but not at intervening points. Passengers on a yacht positioned between the battle and England heard nothing.
In each of these seven battles listed above, the inability of commanders to hear and interpret the sounds of battle was directly responsible for the outcome. One might even go so far as to say the acoustical shadows determined the course of the entire war. The unusual acoustics at Seven Pines placed Confederate commander Joseph Johnston in a position of danger when the battle should have been over. Because of Johnston’s wound, Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Confederate forces two days later.
Rain Shadows are a patch of land that has become a desert because mountain ranges block the rainfall necessary for plant growth.
You’ll often find rain shadows next to some of the world’s most famous mountain ranges. Death Valley, a desert in the U.S. states of California and Nevada, is so hot and dry because it is in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Tibetan Plateau, a rain shadow in Tibet, China, and India has the enormous Himalaya mountain range to thank for its dry climate.
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Shadows provide a clue to dimensionalities and shape. I remember walking with someone, unnamed, felt self conscious of her shadow on our evening stroll. It exaggerated her figure or showed pieces to the extent that walking into the shadows made her uncomfortable.
This makes me think of something else. If a shadow is capable of being owned and embodied, can we suffer pain or emotion from someone stepping on it? Like a phantom limb?
By emotion I mean any fundamental change rather than feeling nothing. I’m imagining someone stomping on a shadow in an angry manner as a means of slight (angry customer stomping on the store owner’s shadow). Shadowboxing subsection? An alien cultural tradition that abuses shadows as a means of slight. (Shadow adoration as a means of affection?) Does this type of shadow aggression exist?
I have memories of using my hands to provide shade for someone I was speaking to while they sat. I have also pulled up at a red light while in my car, and inched my car slightly forward so that the morning sun will be blocked out by the shadow of a nearby car. Can an active road rage incident be caused by the occluding car inching back forcing wincing?
Can we feel suffocation from the shadow? An anxiety to its clinging. A comfort, like a blanket of night?
At work, I was walking near someone, stepping on their shadow. They said to me “You are going to give me bad luck by stepping on my shadow!” I’d never heard of this superstition. “If you step on a shadow, it is believed that you bring suffering to the souls of it’s owners. So going back to the mirror superstition, it was believed that the reflection of a person in the mirror contains part of his soul.” Funny how this idea of the shadow as a mirror, or containing the soul is probably lost from my co-worker’s understanding and all that is left is the superstition.
Also as a child I recall playing Shadow tag. Like regular tag, but contact with shadows makes the child it. Unlike real tag, no one touches each other; instead, only shadows touch shadows! When the child who is “it” tags another child’s shadow, have him or her yell “Tag!
I see discussion of this with educators as a “covid safe” alternative to tag, or “covid tag” where children cough on each other to be it.
Looks like some studies on embodying our shadows have been done.
My shadow, myself: Cast-body shadows are embodied
Objects that serve as extensions of the body can produce a sensation of embodiment, feeling as if they are a part of us. We investigated the characteristics that drive an object’s embodiment, examining whether cast-body shadows, a purely visual stimulus, can become embodied. Tools are represented as an extension of the body when they enable observers to interact with distant targets, perceptually distorting space. We examined if perceptual distortion would also result from exposure to cast-body shadows in two separate distance estimation perceptual matching tasks. If observers represent cast-body shadows as extensions of their bodies, then when these shadows extend toward a target, it should appear closer than when no shadow is present (Experiment 1) or when a non cast-body shadow is cast toward a target (Experiment 2). We found perceptual distortions in both cast-body shadow and tool-use conditions, but not in our non cast-body shadow condition. These results suggest that, although cast-body shadows do not enable interaction with objects or provide direct tactile feedback, observers nonetheless represent their shadows as if they were a part of them.
The multisensory body revealed through its cast shadows
One key issue when conceiving the body as a multisensory object is how the cognitive system integrates visible instances of the self and other bodies with one’s own somatosensory processing, to achieve self-recognition and body ownership. Recent research has strongly suggested that shadows cast by our own body have a special status for cognitive processing, directing attention to the body in a fast and highly specific manner. The aim of the present article is to review the most recent scientific contributions addressing how body shadows affect both sensory/perceptual and attentional processes. The review examines three main points: (1) body shadows as a special window to investigate the construction of multisensory body perception; (2) experimental paradigms and related findings; (3) open questions and future trajectories. The reviewed literature suggests that shadows cast by one’s own body promote binding between personal and extrapersonal space and elicit automatic orienting of attention toward the body-part casting the shadow. Future research should address whether the effects exerted by body shadows are similar to those observed when observers are exposed to other visual instances of their body. The results will further clarify the processes underlying the merging of vision and somatosensation when creating body representations.
There are also many papers involving children,
Young Children Do Not Hold the Classic Earth’s Shadow Misconception to Explain Lunar Phases
The shadow interview results revealed that young children had primitive understandings of the shadow concept. In fact, two of the four children indicated that no light source was needed to produce a shadow.
This is in line with Jean Piaget’s 1927 study for six stages of shadow understanding in children. At age 5, they see it due to opaqueness. Six the product of a single object. The third stage they can predict where the shadow falls. At nine they see it as not a substance behind the object, driven away by light. In looking at this study, there is a similar note to the above where a child of age five, when pointed at his own shadow, believes it to be the product of a chair.
Driving to work I was thinking of the shadow as a reflection, a mirror. What would a shadow mirror look like?
The shadow is something that is silent by nature and by rule. I think this is the case. But I can also imagine shadow cast on something having a physical effect that would produce a sound, like shadows of a tree being cast onto grass and this grass then reacting and reacting on a cellular level, perhaps some moisture forming and producing sound through silent shadowy vibrations. Little reeds of grass shadowy vibrating like violin strings. Moss or fungus stretching in the shade.
Going from this, the weight of a Shadow is one of those childhood thoughts that are actually deep. Some takes,
Shadows don’t actually “exist” in the physical sense. We use the word shadow to describe the phenomena of an object obscuring some light from hitting a surface. When there’s a bright lamp on and you see your shadow on a wall, the “shadow” is basically “the area that the light from the lamp isn’t hitting”. The light from the lamp hits you and stops, and the “edge” of the shadow is the divide between when the light hit you and when it didn’t.
As a totally different way of understanding it, imagine there is a pile of dust on the floor. Now wipe your finger through the middle of the pile of dust so there is a clean streak in the middle of the pile. Does that streak weigh anything? Of course not, it’s just the absence of dust. In the same way, a shadow is just the absence of light, and the absence of something isn’t going to have any weight.
We have a name, shadow. And we know what that name points to, those dark areas over there (imagine I’m pointing). But just because we have a name does not mean there is a thing named. Shadows are not a thing, they are just less light than in the surrounding area. They are not a thing in the world, they are a distinction we make in our descriptions of the world.
Kind of related to my point above with shadows and silent, I see VSauce touched on this point in their video “How much does a Shadow weigh?” (though the video is disappointingly lacking depth on this answer.) The main point, they say, is that photons of light impart energy on objects (to the extent that in space it must be accounted for as it will push masses off course).
I am however glad to have found this video because there’s a segment on Venus’ cast shadow which can be seen on earth. This is awesome.
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The tragic Hiroshima shadows. Not sure where this would fit besides here, imprints of figures or objects resulting from the immensity of rays from nuclear explosion.
You can argue that the majority of the pop paranormal evidence is predicated on shadows, and how people interpret them.
Mike mentioned “5 o clock shadow”. It appears to be related to the “5 o clock tea” habit of the English by way of a 1930s shaving advertisement. Prior the shadowy appearance of stubble was seen as “reserved for ruffians and ne’er do wells” **
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Opale did this wonderfully trippy video using a rotating light source. This also comes back to that “attractive shading” where a lit subject will appear differently depending on where the light is. (Seeing yourself ghastly in fluorescent light of a certain bathroom, or “uglier” or “aged” with unaesthetic shadow.)
Worth a watch,
Studio Lighning Effect - Opale Presents-Sparkles and Wine Teaser
Is this a reality for a being on a pulsar planet? Some kind of constantly dancing and dizzying existence.
Perhaps by having more information in them profiles seem easier to detect in shadows. I recall seeing these camels in viral images and similar types of nature shots over the years.This does make me think of something I have not touched on yet, what non-human animals have unique interactions with shadow. Surely a creature in a cave, or deep below has a different perception of shadow or utilizes shadows in a novel way (a trap? Augmentation? Romantic device?). I just cannot recall offhand.
I remember walking down the streets growing up and the streetlights (this memory with streetlights is something I harp on to the extent I am wondering if it is just a seeded memory in some simulation). Walking down the street with the new lampposts, each bright light replacing the shadow of the last. The walk is radically different now with new lights.
Shadows as a marker. A point line directly to the source, can be inferred. This is used in doxing or investigative research to pinpoint times and locations of photos, noting the angles of the cast shadows. Someone will post something believing it has no link back to them (you cannot escape your shadow!)
Is there the intrinsic sundial to every photo? It is the guide. https://shadowmap.org/ has an
app for telling location by shadows. There’s also a discussion on this type of forensics here
Shadowmap application states a few unusual use cases such as new home owners trying to figure out if their home will be in shadow or light at certain hours. I imagine things like this are critical for garden growing, but sometimes just are left to chance!
Continuing on digital forensics, composite or doctored images can often be detected by observation of shadows. If photos of individuals are taken under different conditions and stitched together, looking at the shadows and reflections in the eyes can often point out revealing patterns.
The hat is also a wearable shadow with a large brim being an obvious example. The function is to cast a shadow on you, specifically you. But what about a hat that casts a shadow on your neighbor? Are there any clothes that you wear that by virtue of your contact someone else wears? The backwards cap style is a refutation of the shadow, making the shadow cast on the neck and back.
Hmm. Now I am thinking of moon gardens and all kinds of gardens specifically made for low light or shadows and shades. This might be an avenue to also explore because I believe there’s that classifications of shade/light and I wonder how that is formulated and the distribution of vegetable matter by different amounts of light (more biological matter would probably prefer light on earth, but what is the breakdown?)
Neighborhoods lacking tree shade are disproportionately low-income communities, as discussed in this really cool data visualization. Tree shade is huge for me, and a characteristic appeal of the forest.
Particularly the space between the clearing and the shadows of the forest can have an alluring mysterious and for me exciting effect, even when rendered in pixel art.
Shadows in space. Came upon this Quanta article today titled “Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures.” with the following quote,
“The universe is really a shadow theater in which the galaxies are the protagonists, and the CMB is the backlight”
and
“Some have even proposed a dedicated “backlight astronomy” spacecraft that would further inspect the various shadows.”
The Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic is foundational to philosophy and involves shadow. In it shadows are a misattribution of reality for the prisoners unable to interact with the casting forms, so viewing only a cast shadow and never seeing the lit object. Prisoners are ignorant in the sense that they are divorced from “greater” truth and reality, instead interacting with shadowy replicas of base forms and then deriving and building truth and reality from these replicas. You can also interrogate the effect of basing reality on these shadows in ignorance, and the difference in knowledge upon interacting with the concrete forms which the shadows are cast from vs a shadow based knowledge system. This delta in knowledge is seen in reactions to a prisoner who breaks through the veil beyond the shadows, who is not believed. For the prisoners the world of shadow is their world and they cling to it but the enlightened prisoner, through his process of leaving the cave and questioning the forms, is the only one who moves to understand it. We find ourselves a step removed from interfacing with anything but shadows, seeking understanding is always tinged with ignorance or refutation. We cling to shadow and shadow clings to us.
Shadows Myths and Fairy Tales (needs to expand)
In Greek mythology we see the shades (Greek word being the aforementioned Umbra) who are humans (the majority, who were not heroes but normal folk) that dwell in the underworld, wandering endlessly without aim or substance. This also follows a motif, where the shadow is akin to a soul.
Shadows are all over fairy tales, often being stolen or taking on a life of their own. Hans Christian Anderson’s The Shadow is one such tale. The protagonist has a conversation with his own shadow and in this tale the shadow is not the lesser”, but the human finds himself subservient to the master shadow. I read this story here.
“…my shadow has become mad; he thinks that he is a man, and that I—now only think—that I am his shadow!“”
Shadow is unreal. We cannot touch it, so shadow is used as a metaphor to describe the unreal - the idea of a shade, a haunt.
I haven’t had time to read this link but it seems very promising.
Comparative analysis of the mythological concept (hereafter referred: myth-concept) ’SHADOW’ in Indo-European (Russian and German) and in Finno-Ugric (Mordovian-Moksha and Mordovian-Erzya) languages, belonging to the different language families.
Shadows are also part of the Groundhogs Day myth and thus part of each year’s holiday, “It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks.” This myth is derivative of the badgers or hedgehog myth in Germany, which features similar trappings but swapping the Groundhog for a Badger.
“Shadow persons” are also a type of cryptozoological, folkloric or conspiratorial phenomenon. We can speculate these are from the human’s pattern finding nature of finding other humans in inanimate objects. Nocnitsa are part of slavic myth, and sound to me like night terrors and sleep paralysis demons. They are hags composed of shadows that sit on the chest of the victim, draining them of their life energies.
I recall reading in the book “kaibyo the supernatural cats of japan” a possibly apocryphal but nonetheless compelling take on the origins of these cat-like yokai (blanket term for supernatural, often creatures). One of these neko- type of demons walks upright and is the source of midnight mischief.
The shadowy origins are that back in the day in Japan they’d use fish oil to light their lanterns in the house. House cats and strays would go up on their hind legs and lick the oil, and their shadows would be cast, thus making the folklore for the wild dancing cats by the people who saw them. I love that.
My profile picture on Discord, once again hidden in plain sight. It’s the image of the Umibōzu.
One theory about the origin of umibōzu is that they are the spirits of dead priests who were thrown into the ocean by Japanese villagers for some reason or another. Because their bodies have nowhere to be laid to rest, their souls inhabit the oceans and haunt it in the shape of a dark shadow, reaping its revenge upon any souls unlucky enough to come across it.
Another Yokai is Kage-onna, “Shadow-Woman”
Kage onna are shadows of women which appear projected onto windows and doors when there is no one around to cast them. They appear late at night when the moon is bright, as the paper sliding doors and windows of traditional Japanese homes are particularly good at catching shadows in the moonlight. They usually take the form of a young lady, though occasionally, they appear as an old crone with a bell hanging from her neck.
Japanese philosophy has a few terms that overlap with shadows. Wabi-Sabi is an aesthetic philosophy that stresses the importance of imperfection and transience. Murata Shukō’s “Letter of the Heart” was central in establishing the japanese tea ceremony. The ceremony was originally a means for monks to remain awake to meditate, but was taken over by the ruling class of shoguns and aristocraft as a means of showing off their expensive pottery, a flashy affair divorced from simplicity. What he suggests then is a refocusing on the ceremony and simple imperfections, a natural state. Rather than to drink tea under the gaze of the full moon, he urges the student to “appreciate the more subtle interplay of shadows on the half of the moon, or the partially clouded moon.” Rather than to drink on pristine “full moon-resembling” cups, to drink from imperfect ones with small errors (resembling shadows).
Wabi-Sabi focuses on asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and emptiness. Jun’ichiro Tanizaki pens “In Praise of Shadows” in 1933 with this framework. He states “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty”, “When we gaze into the darkness that gathers behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase, beneath the shelves, though we know it is shadow we are overcome with the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reigns complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway.”
Further quoting,
“A golden subdued ray, cast in the surrounding darkness, like the shining horizon line at sunset… I don’t think gold shows its sad beauty in a more splendid way somewhere else.”
To Jun’ichiro the aesthetic appearance permeates everything, and shadows augment them all from the whiteness of western paper compared to japanese paper with light reflecting on it “absorbing it slowly, like the fine blanket of the first snow” and the vessels we dine on being just as important as the food, “Our cooking depends upon shadows and is inseparable from darkness.”
Further quoting,
We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.
The quality that we call beauty … must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows toward beauty’s ends.
Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree.
Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a vacant lack of history:
This video is a fantastic showcase of this aesthetic, combining imagery with quotes from the novel.
Another Japanese term that aligns well is the concept of Ma or negative space.
Ma is the perception of a space, gap or interval, without necessarily requiring a physical compositional element
The existence of ma in an artwork has been interpreted as “an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled”, and has been described as “the silence between the notes which make the music.”
On this last point, another digression. I was trying to map a music term with shadow - legato? Pianissimo? I do think there is something to this last one for certain types of shadows. When you work on a piece of music and have mastered it so, that you have full control of the shadows, you can play it softly and at an emotional pace if necessary - it’s not this mechanical process that just spits out a song. “Softer is more difficult than strong”. The Pianissimo symbol is also a shadow of itself.
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**As far as the shadow effect in music, it might be reverb? Classic image below.
Wayang or Javanese Shadow puppets is a form of puppet theater with extensive subtypes and narratives. Puppets are concealed behind a thin fabric called a kelir during the performance and presented as silhouettes.
This style reminds me of the German animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed. “The Adventures…” is the oldest extant animated film and involves cutouts. A distinction from Wayang is that “Adventures” is performed in stop motion. This was an early Netflix watch for me when DVDs were still rentable and I was struck by how watchable it remained and the beauty of the shadows and the monochromatic backgrounds. I am unsure if at the time I was aware of its status as the oldest available animated film, but this fact is striking to me now. Made in 1926, but 100 years ago and still this is the extent of animated film history.
I need a comprehensive shadow aesthetic music list, but adding Grouper’s discography to the list.
Finally (and returning), we come to Kage which is shadow. It is not viewed as negatively as in western cultures, but more of a poetic subtlety.** **We sometimes describe in Japanese that a person with shadow, means some hidden emotion, but it describes someone who has depth in their personality, experience.
Vampires in some cultures lack reflections, and thus shadows. As a type of undead, they lack a proper soul. Vampire hunters could exploit this feature in the hunt. Another variant of vampires, possibly originating from 1922’s Nosferatu, will involve aversion to sunlight, to the extent that prolonged exposure will form boils on the skin and even in advanced stages, combustion. A popular film and series based around vampires is even named “What We Do In The Shadows”.
Shadow stealing is another literary motif here that I was looking into. The German Fairy Tale Peter Schlemihl, appears to be an early depiction of this trope.
“SHADOW STEALING or the theft of a person’s shadow is part of Romanian folklore of the undead. The protagonist of a German fairy tale, Peter Schlemihl, has his shadow stolen by a devilish grey man (fig 1). He will only return it in exchange for his soul (fig.2)”
“In the story, Schlemihl sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet (the gold sack of Fortunatus), only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human societies. The woman he loves rejects him, and he himself becomes consumed with guilt. Yet when the devil wants to return his shadow to him in exchange for his soul, Schlemihl, as the friend of God, rejects the proposal and throws away the bottomless wallet besides. He seeks refuge in nature and travels around the world in scientific exploration, with the aid of seven-league boots. When overtaken with sickness, he is reconciled with his fellow men, who take care of him, and in regard for his sickness do not look for his shadow. Finally, however, he returns to his studies of nature and finds his deepest satisfaction in communion with nature and his own better self.”
I am having trouble finding information, but an earlier text might be the manuscript for Niemand und Jemand. There is possibly some relation with the above and somebody/nobody of a shadow form.
Peter Pan has an animated sequence with this context. Peter chases after his shadow, engaging with it as it flies across the room, hides in other shadows, sneaks and tumbles as the two wrestle.
I’ve also found a lot of references to Schatten that I need help with. I’m finding some sense that Schatten is a specific type of shadow - “a kingdom of shadows” in German folklore.
Germans have a shadow also connected to a human soul (Die Seele ist der Schatten des Menschen – “Soul is a shadow of a person”). In German folklore the kingdom of dead is called kingdom of shadows (Pimenov, 2009). The meaning of death correlating to a shadow is inseparably connected to the meaning of life (dyad life - death):
I also thought of the character of Elaine in Arthurian Myth and the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott”.
But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror’s magic sights, For often thro’ the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, came from Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead Came two young lovers lately wed; ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said - The Lady of Shalott.
In many of these Elaine stories Elaine stands in the shadow of Guinevere. She dies without love, like in The Lady Shalott where she observes from her tower two walking lovers, becomes smitten with Lancelot in her mirror, proclaiming “I’m half sick of shadows” that drives her to her death. There are many of these stories so I might be mixing them up.
Elaine in the Tennyson poem doesn’t directly interact with the world, she is cursed like a shadow and must view the world through a mirror in her tower (seen in the painting below “I’m half sick of shadows” by Waterhouse).
Though tragic, Elaine’s character is often forgotten as a substantial woman in Arthurian mythology. Her only real purpose appears to be to reveal how Lancelot’s affection for Guinevere could not be swayed, even though his romance with the queen was forbidden. Yet Elaine of Astolat’s heartbreak has inspired numerous retellings of her tale, from a heart wrenching song by modern musician Emilie Autumn to nineteenth century poet, Sir Alfred Tennyson. Tennyson’s telling is truly the most prominent variation, entitled “The Lady of Shalott”, and gives Elaine a far more grievous story than Malory.**
I’m now going to transition to Art a bit.
Shadows are a unique problem in art. There’s almost another figure painting to be had by choosing their inclusion, something underlaid or overlaid, transformed. Thus we can resort to simplification and symbols. What about a system like a 3D virtual object where you are bound to the light simulation for shadows, a strict definition you might want to twist artistically?
I had tried to memorize the early techniques of art - “Tenebrism” , “Sfumato” and the more common “chiaroscuro” seem applicable here. Tenebrism being “dramatic illumination” and Sfumato (possibly relating to smoke) being the softening of this shadow (classical example is the face of Mona Lisa and the “indeterminacy of contour”).
Pliny the Elder mentions shadows in Natural History. On the origin of painting, “but all agree it began with tracing an outline around a man’s shadow and consequently that pictures were originally done in this way”. According to legends both for Egyptians and Greeks, painting originated from shadow. “Umbra hominis lineis circumducta” or tracing outline around a man’s shadow.
In the awesome volume I read, “Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art” by E. H. Gombrich he goes over some of this below.
“in the days before pervasive electric lighting, viewers of paintings were far more sensitive to daylight and its source”
Modern galleries often shine electric lights directly upon paintings for illumination. So if you are conscious of shadows when looking at the art, it can be distracting.
This almost made me wonder if the shadowless JPG on a screen could be the purest form of an image, but now thinking on this, it is almost worse - the frame replaced by the monitor’s frame even when viewed fullscreen. Perhaps a fully immersive VR experience, where there are no boundaries is the only way to view a painting in complete isolation.
You can see this here, if you are conscious of the frame and the shadows being cast around it. In multiple light settings this can almost create a “fan” of shadows of varying darkness.
The image of Christ here is also a particular example from the text. I’ve seen references of “God” or “Christ” being that which doesn’t cast a shadow. Opaque physical bodies block light, so a cast shadow would show the presence of a body. As we see below the image of Christ has a self shadow cast on his chest. This presents him as a physical reality.
Shadows themselves are visual anchors to a scene. Over and over this artistic interpretation is in place of religious figures - Christ, angels.
There’s another painting called St Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow by Cappella Brancacci depicting the biblical lines “People brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.” We see Saint Peter walking down a street, and a progression of those once sick, now healed by his cast shadow. I’m not an expert here (and plainly doubt this) but it can be further mixture of the “shadow as a soul” early concept, and thus some logical connection to the saintly shadow gracing these men and healing them.
I found out about this unique phenomenon “Skiier mosaics” (Without looking into this further I can just imagine the conspiratorially minded imagining these as anachronisms pointing to ancient technologies”
What it is though is an artistic compromise and simplification of a shadow.
Also thinking here of shadows in early cave art.
Magritte has shadow influenced paintings. “Empire of Light” and “The False Mirror” below
Magritte on the above
“..The conception of a picture, that is, the idea, is not visible in the picture: an idea cannot be seen with the eyes. What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eyes, it is the thing or things that must have been ideated. Thus, what are represented in the picture The Empire of Light are the things I ideated, i.e. a nighttime landscape and a sky such as we see during the day. The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes day. I call this power: poetry.
If I believe this evocation has such poetic power, it is because among other reasons, I have always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, yet without ever having preferred one or the other. This great personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment.”
Shadows in Western art were often removed entirely for a number of reasons - including viewing them as extraneous. You can imagine from the perspective of an artist, more concerned about things like composition and the depictions of objects might not want the inclusion of shadows to “diminish” or alter their desired artistic product. It could be a difficult duplication of effort to render a figure’s shadows.
In a sense every artistic shadow you see is a false, a lie. In fact, deception of shadows might be a necessary trait.
In Monet’s inverted landscapes we see shadows reflected in the waterlily pools.
Late in his life, transfixed with them he takes a photograph in which his shadow appears. Further interrogated in Shadow of the Gaze. Claude Monet Shadow on a Lily Pond 1920
Shadows often do not even need to be true or even look like actual shadow.
Shadows can also be indicators of drama offscreen. In this example from the book on shadows in western art “Shadow of the horseman” the shadow of the unseen objects whom the boy gestures to.
I am also now thinking this is still unclear or ambiguous. Is it just a shadow of a horseman, or composed of a strange alien assemblage of objects that casts a horseman shadow? Clearly the first, but incontrovertible truth is elusive.
