CATALOG OF SHADOWS I

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concept

An uncontrollable society forces us into certain roles
so that we can assume whatever identity we want. It’s more about the emotional life behind her words, how it's shaping the nature of subjective experience through the body, sound, and its poetic power...’ And those archetypes can be anything, codes of the deep unconscious, constellations of psychical energy. From the first panel with an inherited collective archetype ‘the high priests - Angel’ to archetypes that can be found in everyone's unconscious and that surface in particular in dreams.

’...the shadow sides, we turn away from it, but we’re
also drawn to it.’
The shadow is both familiar and repulsive, grotesque and seductive. In this work she appears with dark but also funny sides. Comic and tragic sides that maybe reinforce each other, anger, love, - we are all of these - She’s trying to convince the outside world that everything is alright, as she exists in appearance. And that can be humorous in a way, the pretend of faking. There is so much absurdity in this.

These figures should obviously be a bit weird,
stereotypes, like when the image doesn’t necessarily fit the character (very styled, dressed up, outspoken, hyperrealistic, over the top), that it will lean a bit towards comedy, with strange combinations or even burlesque expressions.
a good dose of mockery and, in spite of possible suffering, disruptions also funny and serious. Grotesque with hyperboles, exaggerations, superlatives, ironic inversions.

_{designing the seven characters - may 2018}

studio

After two days of fine-tuning the costumes and testing the lighting and greenscreen set-up we started recording in the beginning of june 2018. Theaters Tilburg offered us the use of their space ‘de vrije ruimte’. In the mornings Kristel and Ulrika were rehearsing and fine-tuning the material they created in their sessions the months before. At the same moment the lighting and greenscreen were adjusted for the shoot later that day.

We tried to record one character every afternoon. In reality this was a tight schedule. Every character had a(n) (interior) monologue based on previous performances from the t.r.a.s.h. period. Multiple takes of every figure were collected, each with a quality of it’s own. We evaluated them on the spot, so there would be some kind of a ‘rating system’ to consult when going through the material prior the editing process.

After eight days of filming it was time to collect all of the footage and recorded audio and evaluate it in our own studios.