Living Shadows

The Living Shadows project is an augmented reality experience that explores the intersection of physical and virtual worlds through the medium of shadowplay. It investigates how the shadows of a physical object might be augmented with the shadows of animated creatures and field conditions that exist within a virtual world. The aim of the Living Shadows project is to create a virtual world that is closely linked to its physical counterpart. In this virtual world, a digital twin takes on a life of its own, with actions and influences that are projected back out into the physical world and made visible through the interplay of light and shadow on objects and their surroundings.

Overlaid on a physical work, this virtual world of living architecture evokes new dimensions for exploring the lives of virtual beings immersed within environments. The creatures that inhabit this virtual world help develop the identity of a sculpture’s static physical components. Action composed within the virtual environment is related to the particular components and organizations of physical fabrications within LASG sculptures. The Living Shadows project explores behaviours that these assemblies might manifest if they were given autonomy and set free within a virtual environment.

This project represents an early step in the Living Architecture Systems Group’s exploration of augmented reality environments.

Living Shadows exhibitions 2022-23 include:

“Living Shadow Sphere”, within Poietic Veil, Highlight Delft, February 2023

“Lucid Dream”, within Poietic Veil Tilburg, “Is It Alive?”, Tilburg Textiel Museum, October 2023-March 2024

“Medusa”, “Voltage Dress”, and “Physarum”, within Fear and Mythology gallery, “Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses”, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, November 2023-April 2024

Credits