Light Projections: On the Matter of Light and the Lightness of Matter

Abstract

This chapter explicates light projections as the third instantiation of the post-screen. The chapter’s argument premises on light being the matter of light, namely, light as transformational in the convertibility between materiality and immateriality; matter and energy; rigidity and fluidity, whereby the corporeal is not only rendered impalpable but – its body energized, vitalized and volatile – turned inside out; consumed; deposed. The chapter thus argues for the post-screen through contemporary light projections and projection mapping technologies as the transformation of a variety of surfaces – the urban (e.g. building façades); the amorphous (e.g. water droplets and ash); the biological (e.g. bodies and faces) – giving rise not only to dynamic interrelations between materiality and immateriality, but also a radical convertibility between matter, energy, solidity, mass, and body that signals a moment of media history today.