SHADOWLOGY
speculative definition :
The S H A D O W , in its traditional role, is a subtle yet powerful metaphor for the quality imposed upon women, ´nature´ or matter. All these entities, within patriarchal logic, belong to the object that exploits them, and their very existence is conditioned by that object. Their role is to relate, to complement, or to reflect, never to exist for themselves. They are the shadows of central and dominant figures: man, civilisation, rational thought. (How to delink shadows from this metaphorical existence? > SEE THE UNMADE FRAMES METHODOLOGY BELOW)
1. Slave to the Light
Unable to generate its own identity, the shadow exists only in relation to another element. Similarly, under patriarchy, women, nature etc are often relegated to the status of mirrors or auxiliaries. A dependent role, where their value is judged by their capacity to serve or magnify a central figure.
2. Ultimate Uselessness
The shadow, though present everywhere, is rarely noticed. It is a silent certainty, integrated into the background. This invisibility echoes how second-class beings have been exploited without explicit recognition of their fundamental contributions. Their role is essential but erased, reduced to a utilitarian function. The shadow, without substance, impossible to exploit, is even more useless. It barely exists. Does it even go somewhere when it disappears?
3. Low Level
The shadow is intrinsically linked to the ground, spreading over it or blending with it. This proximity reflects how women, nature, the earth, and animals have been associated with “low,” “primary,” or “instinctive” values. The shadow is never “raised” to the sky: it crawls, stretches, but does not ascend. This assignment to the ground, to heaviness, or horizontality, mirrors the patriarchal notion of a fixed condition, incapable of ascension or transcendence.
4. a Softness called Docility
From a distance, the shadow seems motionless, yet it is in constant interaction with surrounding forces: lights, movements, textures, colours, and even absent colours. Ah, how beautiful the shadow is. By complementing the light, it gently sculpts space, it glides, fluid, always elegant in its movements. This sensual grace also caresses patriarchal stereotypes imposed on women and nature: to be adaptable, conciliatory, wise, and never to challenge the contours imposed upon them. Their actions are eternally rendered invisible, minimised, or co-opted by the vulture-men in their orbit. Shadows are gentle because they do not fight against the light. They only dance on command. They exist because they adapt to what dominates them. Without strong light, they are dead. But even with light, they are dead. There is nothing to fear.
5. Silent Wisdom
If the shadow is an absence of light, it can also be considered a visual silence. The shadow makes no sound. Only one other phenomenon is considered completely silent in scientific and cultural imagination: black holes. These absorb everything, including all possibilities of communication. The shadow is thus the only object that is observable and 100% mute. It does not stir, it does not disrupt the established order. Its silence has been perceived as “wise.” This recalls how women and the earth have been labelled as “naturally” balanced, wise forces, but voiceless. Wisdom that accepts its fate. Two pathways to challenge this bullshit: First, it is evident that shadows provoke emotions or perceptions (mystery, unease, calm, sensuality) that can influence our listening and make us perceive sound negatively. Second, what if, on an imperceptible level, they contained frequencies or vibrations that we cannot detect? Has anyone ever tried designing a device for this? Probably not. Could we imagine a creature capable of perceiving it? Probably.
6. Foolishness
Odourless, matterless, volumeless, contourless, the shadow is not a serious subject of study. (For the curious, experiments on coloured shadows —zones of transition between presence and absence, between light and matter— are still largely unexplained today). Our dear light, on the other hand, symbol of progress and rationality, revealed a secret 100 years ago so rich we still don’t know what to make of it : its photons are so interesting that we don’t assign them one nature but two! (Ha Haa. So, one can be both material and immaterial? Got it!) Another privilege: it serves as a radiant standard for measuring space, time, and energy. Classy. Let us just remind the rational minds that Aristotle recommends a certain logical square to move beyond simple oppositions and think systematically. Shouldn't we use it to discover, through shadows, unexpected relationships or emerging categories?
7. Absurd Cosmology
Finally, the shadow is also a perfect metaphor for embodying the absurd: an elusive presence defying all logic or system. In this tension, between the search for meaning and the acceptance of meaninglessness, lies the possibility of a non-nihilistic absurdity. Here, the shadow is not a despairing void but a fertile space for reinventing our ways of thinking, creating, and existing in the world.
THE UNMADE FRAMES METHODOLOGY
This is how our speculative shadowlogy guides the Unmade Frames Project (a potential cinema's potential action research) :
8. Follow the Shadow
Even if the shadow depends on the light and the object to exist, without it, the light would either be unbearable (omnipresent and blinding) or simply uninteresting. Similarly, objects would reveal themselves to one another without volume or contour, constantly colliding due to their unintelligibility. This apparent dependency thus conceals a symbiotic power essential for all photosensitive beings. Similarly, human women and all the other 'second-class beings' uphold the very structures of the human world.
9. Object's Object Shadow's Shadow
Reversing this paradigm —transforming the object into the shadow of a shadow— overturns the established order. The object fades into a reflection of a greater, more fluid, freer force. More than a game of reversal and revenge, it evokes the dissolution of rigid categories and dualisms (subject/object, man/woman, human/non-human).
10. Dark Interface for the Unthinkable
By surpassing the traditional perception of the shadow as an absence or negative, we reframe it within a speculative vision where it constitutes a hyperobject, of which we can only see fragments, echoes of a vaster, less perceptible order. Let us abandon simplistic dualisms to explore the blurred and unsettling zones of interconnections. Within this framework, the shadow becomes an active interface, revealing the complex relationships between what is visible and what remains hidden. Far from simply complementing light, it acts as a vector of interdependence and transformation, showing us spaces where life and thought meet. Even if they are not pretty.
11. A Monster-Cinema to Escape Fascism
Human history shows that rich forms of absurd art often emerge after major conflicts, echoing the upheavals and absurdities of those times. Today, the looming conflict seems inevitable, fuelled by the headlong rush of a toxic economic system (capitalism) and by what underpins it: a limitless enterprise of total reification. Let us attempt together to understand our ambivalences towards this foolish process. We, Unmade Frames, wish to invite you to try a cinema that is collaborative, inclusive (and more-than-inclusive), a cinema that does not seek to impose a vision, but to open spaces for co-creation and interconnection. We see this cinema as a possible form of a new absurd art, an attempt to collectively explore answers to the void, to tensions, and to uncertainty.
more info : www.unmadeframes.com