Shadows (Schatten), 2004
Video
A hectic evening atmosphere – rush hour: in a big-city square, shadows race around in chaos. A roaring sound impels them onwards. At first, we believe that they are human silhouettes carrying their shadows with them in the diagonal light of the evening sun. We interpret the shadows due to our experience of three-dimensional bodies. But this assumption proves untenable, for it is the shadows that seem to carry the fragmented people along with them, and some even appear completely independent. In Belinchón’s video, the disconnected shadows head inexorably towards their different destinations. On the way, they are sometimes distorted or overlap, and the room may tip forward or backwards as a result. This is the reversal of Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihl, who – after he has sold his shadow to the devil – becomes rich, but has to flee daylight in order to avoid the suspicions of his fellow men.
Sergio Belinchón (born 1971) lives in Berlin.
