FTHo

Notes on Cool as a Shadow

This is another Light Occupations
Playing with light and tasks.
For this Winter Garden I chose shadows.
Why Shadows – because the canvas of nature in winter is colourless.
Trees and plants become silhouettes at this time of the year.
So, if my task as a performer is to entertain – I do this by working in this garden of John Latham.
Whilst the audience remains inside looking out – I share a vision of nature that concerns the shapes of winter.
The ephemeral quality of shadows is seductive.
I am free to move my players in any direction – for and against the logic of nature.
They may disappear in a single movement – then reappear
The choreography is endless – I have to control it carefully – it is a distortion of the real. A cool extravaganza -  nature shakes and shifts in a dance of cold shadows.
My task can be heavy – or so 'light' in weight – nobody knows – it is all a hidden illusion – to the spectator it only appears as light light – or the opposite of light – weightless in shadow.
Shadows are anonymous – you can hide a world of form inside them – they are tricks of light – they shine in their instantaneousness.
'…identity is always shrouded or displaced– presented in shadow or as a shadow…' [1]
– 'there is the sense of presence through partial absence.' [2]
Who knows if I am there and it is actually not a film being projected?
Back in time to remember at the LFMC [3]– sweeping the screen before screenings became 'Aperture Sweep’, Malcolm Le Grice made Horror Film 2 – there – our shadows played with a skeleton, in 'Chair Installation’ – I became a shadow… and… more recently – very grand shadows go walking on 'Dunwich Beach' –
Cool as a Shadow's sound accompanies the players – their own personal sounds – not synched – but linked – in life - to what you see appearing from the outside looking in.

Gill Eatherley, March 2015

[1] Lucy Reynolds. British Avant–Garde Women Filmmakers and expanded Cinema of the 1970s – Doctorate Research Thesis. 2009. P.59.
[2] Ibid – Malcolm le Grice
[3] London Filmmakers' Co–operative