Shadow + Light
Trinity College Dublin
MPhil in Digital Arts and Intermedia Practices (DA+IP)
Collaborative Intermedia Studio
2026 Exhibition
Thursday April 23: 6pm - 9pm
Friday April 24: 10am - 6pm
Saturday April 25: 10am - 6pm
Sunday April 26: 10am - 6pm
Featuring new work by Rofaida Alqaisi, Myah Bailey, Ilyasse Belmaati, Ferda Cakmak, Dominique Crowley, Serena Devereux, Antonia Dias, Dash Foley-Wilkins, Wendy Guo, Amelia Hauer, Caroline Holloway, Angela Huang, Aleksandra Kantysheva, Isabelle Koutny, Alba Molina, Yebo Tang, Seren Udziela, and Kingzel Xing.
Exhibition Opening Programme
Shadow + Light - Exhibition Details
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Ilyasse Belmaati & Aleksandra Kantysheva
Diffuse
Three-channel video installation on CRT monitors
Diffuse is a series of looping scenes inspired by Alex Colville, whose work with light and shadow anticipates early 3D graphics. The installation revisits that quality in digital renders, extending the uncanniness with Al-driven animation. Across the CRT monitors, animals inhabit human spaces under surveillance. Diffuse reflects on how lighting affects what feels natural, and what it means to be watched.
Featured scenes:
shibuya_grazing.mp4
happy_meal.mp4
first_contact.mp4
Isabelle Koutny & Dominique Crowley
When You Close Your Eyes You Hear the Rain
We have been disconnected from nature, and with our busy, bright visually dominated, always on, digital existence we don't get to listen to the beauty of simple sounds, like the sound of raindrops or a wind through the trees. This project is an experiment in fore-fronting these sounds through the disruption of a musical instrument; a piano which when played, has sounds of nature rather than musical notes. These sounds are like shadows, which are always there, not always noticed but an essential component of things.
This artwork uses a newly made site-specific digital instrument, through which various sounds are connected to different piano keys. Each player plays a unique constellation of sounds, which combine sounds from nature, a new background musical track, The Rings of Saturn and the whispered words of The Song of Amergin. Playing the keys transports the player in place and time, bathing them in sounds from worlds which far removed from daily life.
Seren Udziela & Benjamin Foley-Wilkins
The Heart is Dark Inside You - Unless You’re Having Surgery, I Suppose
The modern day is characterized by an enormous focus on image. We are surveilled, scrutinized, and sold as brands online and in the workplace more than any previous time. In the midst of all this, finding time or a private space to understand yourself is a great challenge. This project is a reframing of these challenges into a sort of play. Each light collects into what looks like a complete white light, with the shadows you cast colored by the other perspectives. With the tools and obstacles you’re given, how can you shape your own shadow?
This installation is made of a simple setup of three lights, colored red, green, and blue respectively, oriented towards the same space. Any object in the circle will have three shadows going in different directions. Provided are a set of objects, made of materials that interact with light in different ways. The instructions and communal note space are also a part of the project, allowing people to connect their experiences and strategies to one another and give the practice a life of its own.
Serena Devereux & Alba Molina
Surveillance Intimacy ~ A Rehearsal
The installation bridges boundaries between natural and technological environments, creating a layered infrastructure where hybrid and digital networks refract and distort one another. The installation embodies both surface and depth, producing after-images and ghost reflections that play with perception and spatiality.
The space is moulded through rhizomatic connections, fluid elements underpinning and revealing the materiality of the spaces surveilled. Drawing on the notion of spectacle and performativity, the work reflects on how surveillance produces self-awareness and alters behaviour, while also engaging with world-making through sound and perception.
Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s conception of speculative worlds and Salomé Voegelin’s understanding of sound as a generator of experiential reality, the installation proposes surveillance as an ambient ecology – an echo moving between bodies, environments, and signals – postulating lived realities beyond our own. Here, shadow becomes a space of emergence, and light becomes the agent that stages reality itself.
Angela Huang, Kingzel Xing, Wendy Guo, Yebo Tang
MA: Where to? 马/码：往何处去
作为四位来自中国的创作者，我们在马年重新审视“走马灯”。对我们而言，马不仅是一个意象，更是东方文化的起点与生命力的象征。然而，我们正目睹一场全球性的“结构性坍缩”：马所代表的奔腾精神，正逐渐失去其精神原野，被重塑为数字化时代下的受限符号。
As four creators from China, we re-examine the Zoumadeng during this Year of the Horse. For us, the horse is the cultural starting point of our heritage - a symbol of fluid vitality. However, we are witnessing a global "structural collapse": the boundless spirit of the horse is losing its spiritual wilderness, reshaped into a constrained symbol of the digital age.
通过“马”与“码”的同音悖论，我们记录了这场不可逆的减法。灯笼结构从六边形全景向四边形屏幕的演变，揭示了人类感知是如何在算法的驱动下，一步步走向雷同与封闭。从传统美学的原点到 AI 产出的冗余影像，我们冷峻地记录了视界的收缩：技术日益精进，感知却日益狭隘.
Our project traces the homophonic paradox between “Ma”(Horse) and “Ma”(Code)”. By evolving the lantern’s structure from a hexagonal panorama to a quadrilateral screen, we reveal how our perception is driven by algorithms toward uniformity and enclosure. From the origins of heritage to the redundant outputs of AI, we record a narrowing vision: technology advances, while our perception withers.
Zarife Ferda Cakmak, Myah Bailey, Rofaida Alqaisi
Lucid Dream
Lucid Dreams reimagines the presence of light within everyday space, transforming it into an immersive and interactive experience.
Drawing on the contrast between light and shadow, the work reflects the tension between reality and dream-like perception.
Through movement, the viewer activates and reshapes the projected environment, becoming part of a shifting space where physical and digital boundaries begin to blur.
Amelia Hauer, Antonia Dias, Caroline Holloway
Solstice Signage
Solstice Signage is a contemporary signage installation which aims to enhance the welcome experience at Newgrange through light, material, and shadow. Inspired by the Winter Solstice alignment, the sign is designed to cast a secondary image onto its backdrop, influenced by the moment when sunlight illuminates the passage tomb.
Constructed using layered composite materials, the piece allows light to pass through and around its form, creating a dynamic visual effect. This project creates a subtle connection between past and present that translates into functional signage, enabling a more engaging and memorable experience for visitors.