Plato's famed Allegory of the Cave depicts the world by the duality of the shadowy projections of the cave vs. the reality of the material world. Today technology allows for greater empirical observation yet the incursion of technology and media increasingly blur our perceptions, threatening confusion of the nature of our being.
Designed as a media installation piece, Plato Obscura was first presented at Indiana Wesleyan University on March 26, 2012. Video images of five individuals were projected onto a seamless screen while video footage of the screened images was relayed back to a closed circuit tv on the opposite side of the room. The appearance of the projected individuals, shown here along the bottom of the video clip, was achieved by projecting images onto each subject, dressed in white, then recorded and displayed as real time video. As viewers passed through the space in front of the screen, side lighting illuminated their figures, causing them to appear on the closed circuit monitor. The resultant display is a merger of both audience members and projected figures.