The truth behind the screen: Digital shadows in the time of pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges of communicating digitally to the fore as people turn almost solely to their digital screens for connection and collaboration. In doing so, such as through web conferencing, we open up our living spaces to others, revealing parts of our lives heretofore we could keep hidden. In this article, I will describe ‘Interior’, a live Zoom shadow puppet performance by Australian puppet theatre collective, The Jill Collective, as an example of a deliberate response to COVID-19 pandemic isolation and social distancing restrictions. I offer the practice of traditional Wayang architecture of the shadow screen as a surface to physically work on, in, behind and through, as well as the screen as metaphorical facade or gateway as a unique theoretical and practical approach to digital performance.