Inspired by Reanimation by Joan Jonas, as I experienced it at the Museum of Modern Art in 2018.
There is a shadow on the wall.
It is yours. See—the arm moves with yours, the silhouette turns. The line of your shoulders, arch of your neck, point of your toes.
Things are only made a little strange, by the distortion around you. The shine-sparkle-shade of light through (not fully through) hanging teardrops; the flicker of the projector between bits of film; the haunt of music you do not know pulling at your ear. These things disrupt.
But the shadow is yours.
Step and turn and—
There is a shadow on the wall, and it is not on the wall, it is stretching across a field, long in a cold afternoon sunlight (not this afternoon, not this light, not this room). It is not a shadow—was a shadow, is a projection of light against a screen, captured and recast. It is not as dark, not as sharp, not as real and present and here.
(Shadows here are made large by bright light, artificial, harsh, direct, directed, staged. It is shining behind you. You know it. You have seen it play through-across-against:)
Dangling crystals spin, catch the light, throw it. Ventriloquists of brilliance, eclipsing and illuminating and dancing a new form to silhouette, and line, and movement.
And you watch the in-between flicker until the scene changes, and there is a shadow on the wall. And it is yours.
Isn’t it?
The Junction Journal 