Colored Shadows

Many people think of shadows as black. But to cast a truly black shadow, we would have to live in a world with only a single source of light. But our world is normally filled with lights from many directions, and in many colors. Even after one of those lights is blocked, the remaining lights cast their own colors into a shadow. Most shadows have color of some sort. This exhibit consists of three pure sources of primary colored lights, red, blue, and green, shining on a white wall. The wall looks white because these three colored lights, mixed together, make white light. With these lights, visitors can make shadows of seven different colors; blue-green, lavender, yellow, blue, red, green and black.

Recollections

This immersive digital art work from Ed Tannenbaum consists of a large screen, a camera, a reflective wall and a hidden computer. When a visitor stands in between the screen and the reflective wall, the camera continuously takes pictures of the reflections from the wall. Because the person is blocking part of the wall, the image the camera records is the wall minus the area which the person blocks. In other words, the camera is capturing an image of the person's shadow. The camera feeds these images to a computer which adds color and special effects and plays it back on the screen.

Sophisticated Shadows

Using a variety of differently shaped light sources and panels, visitors experiment with the formation of shadows using their own bodies or one of the several objects supplied in the exhibit. The shape of any shadow depends on the shape of the light source and the shape of the object blocking the light. The light sources may be used separately or in conjunction with each other.

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